Sunday, June 22, 1952: For the Kiddies

I love this strip! I saw it when I was a little kid in an early Peanuts compilation and it's stuck in the back of my mind ever since. The "For the Kiddies" in funky script at the top drives the joke home.

Check out all the names: Mangle, Slaughter, Throttle, Jab, Terror, Choke, Crush, Run (something), Mob, War (twice), Thrill, Smash, Murder Comix, Killer, Hate, Ouch!, Hit!, Mur-something (maybe Murder again), Terror, Gouge, Stab!, Kick Komics, something I can't make out, Kill Komics, Murder Comics, Smash, and Blast Comics.

In addition to some rarely-seen cultural commentary from Charles Schulz in the form of those titles, we get Charlie Brown professing to being discouraged here. And the Druggist is basically an unseen character here.

Drug stores used to be an important center for the community. How far they've fallen since those days. I have never seen an operational soda fountain in a drug store in my life.

EDIT: Fixed comic.

June 21, 1952: Further development of the monster

Charlie Brown handles this a lot better than he does all those footballs later on. This is also the first "POW!" I remember seeing in the strip. POW is a word often connected with Lucy....

I've looked ahead a few months, and I have to say there are some excellent strips coming up. Linus makes the scene before long!

June 20, 1952: How does a little kid get so down on himself?

This is a major shift towards Charlie Brown's later personality.

June 19, 1952: They grow up so fast

A momentous strip: Lucy has lost her eye-circles then facing forward! And she's talking just like everyone else! And she isn't referring to herself in third-person anymore! And it reveals a glimmer of the raging inferno beneath the surface too! Oh, it's also a funny strip.

(Note that there is a Sunday strip coming up where she has eye circles. And in a couple of months she refers to herself in the third person one more time. This doesn't mean Lucy's early self is entirely banished just yet....)

June 18, 1952: Rules for Dog Word Bubbles

- If the bubble contains English text, that is letters that are not meant onomatopoetically then it must be a thought bubble. Animals cannot talk.

- However, animals can "say" the sounds they ordinarily make. So, Snoopy can say "Arf" or "Ruff" or even "Bark."

- As we see here, Snoopy can also say punctuation. Here I believe the intent is just to show a mood. Snoopy isn't actually saying anything, it is just showing his mental state. The word balloon is technically extraneous here.

- Once in a while you'll see Snoopy say something that is borderline between the two. Some time ago he said "Heh heh," which is hard to adjudicate. Dogs can't laugh, but presumably they can make sounds like being amused, so I assume that was Schulz's intent.

- Then there was that strip in which Snoopy had a sheet over his head and said "Boo." The joke in that one was from being inexplicable.

June 16, 1952: A reasonable request

There is a whimsicalness to early Peanuts that I find appealing. It's not just that Lucy washed her hands in Charlie Brown's glass of milk, it's that she asked nicely first like this is standard Lucy protocol.

Turnabout strip!

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.