Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, 1953

December 25, 1953:

December 31, 1953:

The Christmas strip is another message to the reader, which I don't think generally work for Peanuts, but at least there's a joke to it this time. It's funny that, if you give him enough space, Charlie Brown draws his letters with serifs.

The New Year's Eve strip isn't holiday-specific, but is funny. It's something of a follow-up. I love Schulz's giant serif Zs, which we can take to indicate the sound, and loudness, of Snoopy's snoring. Schulz returns to this particular gag later.

The motion lines make it look like Snoopy is being thrown out of a basement.

March 12, 1953: Head-over-heels

This is the first strip in which a character is thrown head-over-heels just from the force of some other action, usually a loud noise. We have had a case sort of like this back in the first Lucy football strip, but it didn't happen in the iconic Peanuts fashion. This is the first time in which it's mere noise that causes the tumble.

The head-over-heels motion will become one of the most distinctive elements of Charles Schulz's visual comic language. It looks natural on the page, but it doesn't animate very well; the implied force is away from the noise, so the subject can't stay on-screen long enough to read the motion well. Also, is the victim spinning, or just being thrown back? And what kind of sound should the somersault itself make?

January 12, 1952: Putt putt putt

I like Charlie Brown’s driving cap and how his name is printed on his go-kart. That’s remarkably accommodating of Snoopy too, especially considering I don’t know any dog that would willingly make a noise like “putt putt putt.”

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Just want to take this opportunity to note that, as I was clicking the Embed link on comics.com's site for this one, I accidently clicked on one of the teeth-whitening ads on the side of the page. Before I could do anything about it, a new window had opened filled with dense text trying to convince me to buy Ill-Advised Internet Product #763. Especially hateful is the fact that, when I clicked the X button to close the window, the page opened a "are you sure" dialog warning me that this special offer won't be around for long.

Maybe I'm just high-strung, but things like that make my eyes glow red, my head spin around, and my mouth utter involuntary invocations to Yog-Sothoth. As astoundingly obnoxious advertisement.

Oh well, at least a woman in lingerie wasn't trying to get me to play Evony.