March 20, 1951: Death by Beethoven

Another reference to Beethoven, the Peanuts characters' go-to guy for classical composer names.  It's a fairly funny joke, too.

This is a fairly dark thing, if you think about it, for Charlie Brown to say. We'll see one of the darkest things ever to appear in Peanuts in a bit, inside of one of Snoopy's very first thought balloons....

February 27, 1951: Om-nom-no-- is that a worm?!

Back to Patty and Charlie Brown here.  I'm given to wonder what differentiated Patty and Violet in Charles Schulz's mind.  I get the sense that Violet is younger yet a little more matronly with her skills at dirt-baking.  Patty is a bit more insecure.

The main reason I point out this strip is how Charlie Brown is drawn eating in the last panel.  I find it appealing.

January 26, 1951: Viewing them head-on

Sometimes the real humor of a strip comes from a little thing.  Here, the joke would be much less effective if it weren't for two little things: the smile on Charlie Brown's face and the annoyance of Patty, both in the last panel.  Those tip off the reader that the characters know it's a joke, and that it's kind of dumb.  Although the strip does offer a "dumb kids" joke sometimes, more common are these strips where smart kids say something dumb to entertain themselves.

I mentioned last time that the characters look more like their later-day versions when viewed from the side, with only one eye visible, than from head on or three-quarters, when both eyes are visible.  It's due, I think, to the distance between the eyes, which is fairly substantial here, and the way open mouths are depicted, with a vertical line to define the nose and mouth when we shouldn't be seeing one.