Sunday, June 15, 1952: I know people who do this during DVD movies

Schroeder still hasn't said that many words. I get the feeling that Schulz intended his lack of verbosity to be a part of the character. Or maybe it's just that he doesn't want to talk over his own music so much?

June 13,1952: The shame of it all

Subtly revealing of Schroeder's personality. He's not just a musical genius, he's a picky genius.

June 10, 1952: Some of us take our flavors seriously

Why did Charlie Brown even offer the red ones then?

June 9, 1952: Wishy-washy!

Mostly this one is just cute, but it is a foreshadowing of one of Charlie Brown's most-mentioned character traits, his wishy-washiness.

Sunday, June 8, 1952: Someone get that kid a helmet

Now imagine this kid pitching a baseball. At YOU.

June 7, 1952: Violet has mood swings

Violet is one of the more generic Peanuts characters in the classic era, but in the early period she seems to be purposely more moody than her counterpart Patty. This is not the first time a joke like this has been used for her, and it won't be the last either.

June 6, 1952: The dangers of accepting random bugs

Kind of an anti-climatic last panel here. Most of the joke, to me, comes from the idea that Lucy just thought Charlie Brown would want a bug at all. Later on, she takes to stomping such insects with exaggerated force.

June 5, 1952: Standing on one foot

Lucy's monomania is developing in this strip, but I link it mostly because you get a really good look at her clothes in this one.

Lucy wore two primary outfits that I know of in Peanuts' run. This shows her earlier outfit and the one she wore during most of the classic period, a slightly formal number with a bow in the back, and colored blue on Sundays. Here the skirt is fairly normal, later on it would become highly stylized and stick out almost at right angles to her body. In later years, probably as a nod to changing fashions, Schulz would adopt a kind of jumpsuit for her attire, which made her look vaguely more athletic.

She still has the round eyes here. I never get tired of pointing them out. They won't be here much longer. When Linus shows up, which is in a month or two I think, he has the same eye style as Lucy but from the start he has her parenthesis, or "Binkley," eyes.

June 2, 1952: Sore Winner

I imagine that Puerto Rico would drive the poor girl insane.

Sunday, June 1, 1952: Don't let him bluff you!

This is one of my favorite Peanuts strips of all. It's just really funny. I've related this one from memory to people on several occasions. Artistically it's pretty good too, the characters don't look like disassociated images that don't relate to each other except by proximity here, which I think is a problem sometimes with Peanuts. Look at Snoopy jumping up on Charlie Brown, and the two running around the tree. I think this is Peanut's first really great Sunday strip. It all works extremely well here. Schulz must have been pleased with it himself, I think, and yet in the cartooning biz there is no time to bask in the glow of a well-made strip; it's always, immediately, on to the next one.

Notice Snoopy gets a thought balloon here containing English words (his second ever), but it isn't the traditional style. It has a tail here. Snoopy's reaction is priceless. "Can this be true?"

And in terms of construction this is also an excellent strip. It's one of the first Sunday strips which tells a complete story instead of a collage of related jokes. Notice how Charlie Brown and Snoopy's positions have become Patty and Charlie Brown's, respectively, in the last panel.