Sunday, August 29, 1954: And there on the fence I saw drawn a giant X

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

I find the huge 'X' at the end of Lucy's aborted count to be starkly evocative. Those tally marks could be raindrops, or stars, or maybe lives.

Charlie Brown remembers Lucy counting the stars in previous strips. The spectre of continuity rears its head here, and with it, unavoidably, the characters move closer towards being individuals more than interchangeable placeholder images for jokes.

December 17 & 18, 1953: Two with Linus

December 17, 1953

 December 18, 1953

Both of these strips show off Linus' overalls, which would much later be seen on Rerun.  Whether they are hand-me-downs is unknown to me.

The first strip is another of the "Snoopy and Linus annoy each other watching TV" series.  The second has an unusual "Oh, my!" pose from Charlie Brown in the first panel.