October 2, 1952: Two years

This brings to a close the second year of the strip.

In the second year were introduced both Lucy and Linus. Schroeder learned to talk. Charlie Brown's psychological problems began to become more evident. Shermy, already on his way towards irrelevance, only appeared a small number of times. Schulz's art style, fired in the crucible of a daily comic strip, has evolved considerably. Most of the characters have gradually eased into their classic looks, all except for Charlie Brown (who's oval remains as a vestige of the original style), Snoopy (who has so far changed fairly little) and Linus (who is currently the strip's baby).

In the next year there aren't any major character introductions, but Schulz's art style evolves a bit more. Snoopy and Charlie Brown both draw closer to their later forms. The very next month has the first of the strips where Charlie Brown fails to kick Lucy's football. But most importantly this is the year in which Peanuts' writing really matures into something recognizable and wonderful.

For comparison's sake, here is the strip from one year before:


And here is the strip one year to come:

September 8, 1951: Slide, Charlie Brown, Slide!

For contrast, nine years later on May 20, 1960:

January 29, 1951: How does it handle in traffic?

Another case of adult words put into a kid context here.  Not a bad joke either, I'd say.

Let's take a moment to compare this with the first strip:

It's been around for just under five months at this point, but already the characters show considerable changes.  We're immersed in the early days of the strip so far in this blog, but although there is a winning style in these early strips, it really doesn't last long.  Already the character's eyes have enlarged into ovals, their hair has filled out, the faces are more expressive and the lines are darker.  Character heads are beginning to vertically expand into the near-circles we knew for over forty-five years of the strip's history.

Three years after the strip's debut, the original style will be almost completely gone: