Remainder of AAUGHust 1955

So, my new plan is to do a post every week or two, covering a month.  Not every strip in that month, because there are a lot that are just some wordplay or a minor joke.  But still, a good number.  Here's a few now!

August 14

She certainly "broke," all right.  Lucy continues to develop into the terror we know and love.  This is an excellent strip from the time; it's got good art, and not only does it show the characters' personalities clearly, but it even ends with a good sight gag.  The only weird thing about it is Schroeder saying "Where's the chalk?" in the first panel, which doesn't have a purpose as far as I can see.

August 15

Is that really how a dog says "bow wow?"  This one's linked for containing an extensive Snoopy thought bubble, which are still rare at this time.  It's also the second strip in a row to contain a "good grief," one of Peanuts' particular catchphrases and a favorite of Charlie Brown.

August 16

And this one got selected for showing Linus' increasing blanket mania.

August 17

Poor ol' Charlie Brown.

August 18

1. Snoopy and Linus are a prominent double act in the early years of the strip.
2. Linus' shirt lacks its characteristic stripes here.

August 19

A use of "rats," just about strongest curse a Peanuts character will ever utter.  In any case, we know Snoopy has his day, it's August 4th.

August 20

Presented for laugh value.  The aspect of this strip that elevates it for me is Charlie Brown's warning.  Snoopy's leaps have a lot of character, the design reminds me of the looser, leaner, 60s Snoopy.

August 21

Nice backgrounds in this strip!  I've remarked about them before of course, but this one has a wealth of unnecessary detail.

August 24

This is a good example of a kind of joke that you rarely see outside of Peanuts, taking something we take for granted, extrapolating it in an unexpected direction, and illustrating a reaction.  Also, it gives us an early AAUGHH!

August 25

More serif Zs, and a good ornate question mark above Shermy's head too.  I'm surprised more hasn't been said about Charles Schulz's attention to detail in rendering language.  You art majors out there, I'm sure there's a decent paper in this for you!

August 28

"I thought I heard hoofbeats?"  Wait, what?

A good example of Snoopy as energetic mischief maker, a prominent role for him in this age of the strip.  Also note the looped 'W' in WHAM.  Let's also note, for a moment, Charlie Brown's warning in panel 6, which breaks up the Zooms, gives us an effective comedy beat right before the collision, and makes Snoopy's crash more painful by showing us another character reacting with dismay at it.  While the action of Snoopy running around is entertaining, if you read it while leaving out the sixth and last panels it's just the scene of an accident.  It's Charlie Brown's annoyance that makes the strip funny.

August 29

This is the first time Snoopy has acted out one of his fantasies, an important step in the development of his rich internal life, which would become one of Peanuts' defining characteristics.

August 30

We've seen a reference to Miss Frances, of the nearly-forgotten preschool kids' show Ding Dong School, before.  Interestingly, the Miss Frances Wikipedia page mentions that Peanuts referred to them four times.  This is the second; the other two are in 1956.  It goes to show, Peanuts wasn't afraid to make pop culture references, even from a fairly early point.

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Well, that's a good start towards reviving the blog.  I actually had most of this written two days ago, but Blogger ate the images and some of the text and I had to rebuild it.  The next post should cover all of September, and from there we're going to try to do a month at a time for awhile.  Note these images are not linked to their gocomics versions.  Sorry about that, I just wanted to get the thing up after the hiatus, I'll go back to linking them to the official archive soon.