Friday, July 31, 2009
August 28, 1951: Snoopy's birthday
Should this be considered Snoopy's official birthday? I don't think Schulz planned out his characters' backstories in that much detail, really. Does it seem strange to sing "Happy Birthday" for a dog?
Snoopy is a dog of many emotions: surprise, tearful gratitude, and anticipatory happiness.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
August 27, 1951: Baby vs. Dog
A funny strip, though a variant of the ball throwing one from a few days ago. How about Schroeder's "talk to the hand" gesture in the second panel?
Notice that, to signal the characters eating, Schulz resorted to word balloons saying "chomp chomp" and "smack smack."
Also, it's not their first appearance by any means, but check out the fancy question-marks in the second and fourth panels, which were kind of a Schulz trademark in the early days.
And: scribble of ire!
Labels:
food,
schroeder,
scribble,
scribbleofire,
snoopy,
talktothehand,
theft
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
August 24, 1951: The Pitcher's Mound
This seems to be the first instance of Charlie Brown pitching. I can forgive the umpire sitting behind the pitcher for the chance to see Snoopy, in one of his earliest fully-intelligent moments, declaring a ball to CB's consernation. A funny strip!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
August 23, 1951: Snoopy is overexcitable
Nice drawings of Snoopy here, especially tired out in the last panel. I think this is the first time we've seen that look on him.
Labels:
charliebrown,
snoopy,
tired
Monday, July 27, 2009
August 22, 1951: That's a mean baby
The look on Schroeder's face in the first panel is fairly unique for him. Also, behold the return of the scribble of ire!
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
August 20, 1951: It's not good to sit on a dog, anyway
Schroeder is the default baby character again here, filling in the same kind of role that would later be filled, in turn, by Lucy, Linus, then Sally. These kinds of baby jokes would decrease in number over time, presumably as Schulz's own connection with infants (such as his own young kids) diminished over time. I barely remember seeing much of Rerun's infanthood, he just sort of settled into being the preschool character.
Labels:
charliebrown,
ride,
schroeder,
sit,
snoopy
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
August 15, 1951: Silhouette
It's the first time the characters have appeared in silhouette.
One measure of the quality of a comic character's design is how recognizable is its outline. It's easy to tell Charlie Brown apart from Patty here in panel three. (John Kricfalusi had a blog post about this a little while back, but I can't find it at the moment.)
Labels:
charliebrown,
moon,
nightmare,
patty,
silhouette,
wish
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
August 13, 1951: Comic magazine
A prescient strip. Here's the article from inside that issue.
(Also, it's another turnabout chase strip.)
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