May 9, 16, 23 & 30, 1954: Lucy at the Golf Tournament

We've come around to that strange place in Peanuts history where Charles Schulz experimented with putting adult characters in the strip as background elements, with continuity elements, with a relatively serious storyline, with titling, and with making Lucy a golf whiz.

Thing is, we already covered these strips last year.

I'm taking the day off from the blog, feel free to go back and reread my comments on the sequence, which is among the stranger moments in Peanuts' run, right up there with the time Alfred E. Neuman appeared in the strip.

---

Read this sequence at gocomics.com:
May 9 - May 16 - May 23 - May 30

January 18, 1954:

January 19, 1954:

January 20, 1954:

January 21, 1954:

Let's do a few this time:
January 18: This strip is a callback to December 16, 1953.  Like that earlier strip, Schroeder's legs reveal attention to how they're braced against the fence.  Nowadays it seems weird that a kid would get off of school for his birthday, or that of any random classical composer.  That fence is weird -- it's in both strips.  This must be the edge of Schroeder's yard.  Chagrimace!

Of note for trivia contests: Schroeder's birthday is January 18.

January 19: It would be so easy to derive a political message from this strip.

January 20: This strip is something of a callback to July 2, 1953.  In that strip the kids are saddened by the prospect of being left with a babysitter.  Here, they're gloating at the prospect of the other being left behind.  Gradually, their relationship is evolving.

January 21: I like this one for how the shape of the notes in the last frame fill in the space between the top and the piano.

March 3, 1953: Lucy and the sandwiches

This strip makes no sense if you don't remember Lucy's prior fussiness over cutting sandwiches. This indicates that Schulz feels confident enough in her personality that he can use the character as a symbol of it, just like Schroeder is a symbol of both the artist and musicians in general.

This is different from Snoopy being a symbol of, say, dogs, or Linus of babies, because that's obvious from immediate reading.

The only other example of what I'm talking about that springs to mind are Charlie Brown's tantrums when faced with another character's quirks. Violet's mud pies don't count because Schulz only uses that in a context where the reader is reminded of her mud pies.

November 15, 1952: Head of the household

1. Did Schulz chafe at the apparently simplistic art style of Peanuts? Did he throw in the realistic closeup of the telephone in the first panel to show he could draw in a more detailed style?

2. Lucy's expression in the last panel is very interesting. Comic strips so often come down to the same basic faces over and over again. People don't tend to think about it, but it's harder to come up with non-standard face expressions than you'd think. Here I think Lucy's expression might be a little overdone, but you can still get the point of the joke from her words combined with the expression, so it's okay.

October 23, 1952: Snoopy fails to get the paper

The first panel contains an excellent drawing of Snoopy walking. You can plainly see here that he's changed a lot since his original appearance:



Although, looking at Patty there, he's not changed nearly as much as the other characters. If Peanuts' art style remained like that throughout the strip's run, would it be as popular? It does look very fifties.