Week of August 9-14, 1954: Things like that make my stomach hurt

August 9

As Lucy becomes more bullheaded and cantankerous, Linus would grow into the role of asking Charlie Brown science questions. In one memorable strip, he asks an angry-faced Lucy why the sky is blue. She snaps back at him "BECAUSE IT ISN'T GREEN!"

August 10

That coy smile on Pig-Pen's face in panel three is interesting, in a Mona Lisa kind of way.

August 11

This is a growing part of Lucy's personality, a refusal to acknowledge basic facts. At she isn't laughing about what a joker Charlie Brown is afterwards this time. Charlie Brown's stomachache of dismay when confronted with one of his friends' quirks is a developing part of his character, too.

August 12

It's been a little while since we've seen a fussy Lucy strip. This one fits right in with the pattern: Lucy looks a gift horse in the mouth, and the horse kicks. Charlie Brown's expression is a little different this time: it's a more introspective look of annoyance, more of a look of "why does this happen to me?" than "why do I put up with her?"

I might have to agree with Lucy, however, if there really are weeds in the lemonade.

August 13

Having trouble coming up with something to say about this one. Not the most complex joke we've seen.

August 14

This seems more like something Linus would do. Actually, Schroeder has been in a good number of non-musical strips around this time. He's catcher of the baseball team, he's Charlie Brown's cartooning audience, and he's also around as a bit character. I remember as a kind seeing Schroeder strips at the piano and wondering why I never saw him anywhere else. He seemed to exist in a piano-centered universe, with occasional visits from the Satan of his personal world, Lucy.

The first panel demonstrates a curious aspect of Peanuts' artwork from around the time. Characters wearing a neutral expression viewed front or from the diagonal are often drawn without mouths. I thought it was weird the first time I saw it, and I still think it's weird now.

Sunday, July 25, 1954: You crazy dog

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

This is one of Snoopy's earliest moments of pure anarchy.

The lead-in panels on this strip, the two at the top that newspapers had the option of leaving off, are important this time. Without those panels, this strip is about Snoopy the crazy dog. With them, it's about how Charlie Brown doesn't take good care of his records. Even without the lead panels the second interpretation makes more sense than the first, but it doesn't have the necessary narrative weight behind it without seeing Charlie Brown sailing that record through the air.

When I first saw this strip in a compilation it was without the lead panels, and I was confused that Charlie Brown didn't see it was plainly Snoopy' fault the record was scratched up. (The reprint did have Charlie Brown rolling the record on its edge, but as a kid I just assumed, rather confusedly, that was a way people transported records back then.)

April 24, 1954: Fashion arbiter of novelty records

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

I assume this is a kid's record or some sort, or maybe a popular song of the day.  Regardless, Lucy's summation is probably accurate.  It is kind of a strange thing to write a song about I'd think.  Her diagnosis might be regarded as practice for the Psychiatrist's Booth.

Sunday, November 29, 1953: Charlie Brown should see this

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

Lucy's joy at being the best at jumping rope is wonderful.  Panel 2 is a bit strange for its abstract ground, but it works.  Panel 4 is terrific though, even if, when you look closely at it, Lucy's rope jumping isn't as fluid as it appears at first.  It's really several different, unconnected images of her jumping rope presented together in such a way that it scans as a continuous stream.  It does further the illusion of her skipping rope with a forward motion though, which is important since one jumping rope in place cannot come across other people.

He put so much work into this that I almost feel embarrassed to notice there's a small mistake here in the strip construction.  If you remove the top panels (like some newspapers do) the joke becomes much weaker, since Linus reaching 700 jumps isn't as impressive if we didn't know Lucy was so proud because she hit 600.  The boldface on "SEVEN HUNDRED" loses its relevance.  The strip is still understandable in that Lucy's change in demeanor implies that her brother has surpassed her.  I suppose, in that regard, the knowledge that she had reached 600 is extraneous information?

EDIT: Fixed gocomics link.

May 8, 1953: Mania, meet mania

For those of you too young to remember those strange things called "ree-cords," they were fragile platters of vinyl on which were engraved grooves which, when used in the proper player, could reproduce sound.

The shockwave coming off of Schroeder's head in the last panel, is one of those comic conventions, here as a depiction of surprise or dismay, that is mostly just accepted. But what is it supposed to represent? What is it a visual metaphor for? What's to stop us from creating our own such visual metaphors? (I think it'd be fun to do this but make them crazy and nonsensical.) How do these things get invented and agreed upon?

February 19, 1953: Lucy works on her psychoanalysis degree

Lucy provides a dismissive, yet possibly accurate, diagnosis of a character from literature. It's the first time Lucy does something that could be considered psychiatry (seen practiced later from her famous booth), and the first time the strip has directly named some behavior as neurotic, an important step towards the sophistication of its classic period.

Sunday, October 5, 1952: Bumpity-bump

I've already mentioned that the Sunday strips were almost certainly not done on the same schedule as the weekday ones, which is why this Sunday strip mentions that Lucy has been going all week even though she has been seen without the ball in a couple of the intervening weekday installments.

I'm not quite sure why Charlie Brown sees Lucy's quest as a threat to his sanity. Maybe it has to do with the noise, or maybe he sees her possible accomplishment as a threat? Maybe he just doesn't want to live in a world in which a little girl can bounce a ball for an entire week. (Speaking of which, doesn't she sleep?)

I am not sure, but this may be the last strip in which Lucy refers to herself in the third person.

Sunday, September 28, 1952: Lucy and the Ball

Lucy's attempt to set a record bouncing that ball continues next Sunday as well.

February 1, 1952: And I'll Rock You Away To That Sugar-Plum Tree

Isn't it just a tiny bit hard to believe that songs like this were ever popular? I think this joke is actually a little bit funnier now because of that.

Sunday, January 20, 1952: I don’t think the Guinness people will consider his achievement

Again note the leadup in the top panels which, again, must be designed considering that some newspapers remove them. One way to allow the strip to survive this is to extend the setup for the story. Another way is to present a self-contained joke in those panels. A third way, used frequently in Peanuts’ later days, is to simply provide some thematic, abstract art in the large title panel, which won’t be missed if the panel is excised.

This strip further develops Snoopy’s personality. In about a year, if memory serves, Lucy will be involved in a sequence involving bouncing a ball for nearly a week.