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Let's Read Peanuts (Fat-shaming Charlie Brown since 2023) – May 1959

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read along at the official GoComics page or by purchasing the Fantagraphics hardcover collections.

May 2, 1959

May 9, 1959

Terrible. Just terrible. At least throw some skulls in there or something. Good sadbrains art should make your teacher wonder if it’s safe to let you come to class.

May 10, 1959

This is actually a pretty good art(life?) lesson. Things are rarely exactly how you imagine them so it’s important to actually go out and check from time to time.

May 18, 1959

I THINK she’s talking about the world record for cramming people into a phone booth which made the newspapers in March of 1959. That said, if that’s the case Schulz fudged the numbers a bit because the record I found was for only 25 people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonebooth_stuffing

May 20, 1959

Did you know that Charlie Brown’s pencil-pal is actually a little girl in Scotland? No, really. That's actually canon (how dare you call me a liar!). There was going to be a TV special about it and everything that got scrapped after Schulz died but eventually got adapted into a graphic novel. 

And yes, of course I’ve read it.

It’s… kind of boring.

May 24, 1959

At this point Lucy actually can’t stop bullying Linus because the second she shows even tiniest hint of weakness he’ll eat her alive.

May 25, 1959

Wait, why is his mom in the hospital? What on earth i-OH SHIT! SERIOUSLY!?

I legit didn’t think that this happened in this decade.

May 26, 1959

I love how psyched he is about this. :3

Anyways, I hope you all weren’t expecting to actually ~see~ Sally anytime soon because it’s going to be a while. 

Thoughts:

I kind of hate how that baseball storyline ends. There’s a LOT of buildup to this super important game over the course of three whole weeks (which might make this the longest storyline so far) but then the game just sort of happens offscreen with zero fanfare and it all just kind of fizzles out. What exactly was learned here? What was the point of it all?

This kind of thing is actually a pretty common issue with longer-form Peanuts stories like the movies or specials. A storyline that only takes a week can function just fine as a simple series of riffs on a concept but the longer a story becomes the more you start needing things like character arcs or setups and payoffs to give the thing some structure, and those just aren’t things Schulz is great at. 

In this case we have a story where the kids are actually invested in winning for once, but are still pretty bad and know it. If this were a more traditional episode of television the payoff for this would have been either them discovering some hidden inner strength and winning in spite of the odds (blasphemy, I agree), still losing but taking away some sort of life lesson, or losing in a funny way due to some pre-established character flaw. For example, maybe Charlie Brown’s lack of faith in his team blows up in his face when he insists on making a catch for Lucy, but ends up fumbling it himself and losing the entire game. But none of these things occur. The most obvious outcome just sort of happens and then we move on. 

The thing I thought of the most when this storyline wrapped up was actually the end of A Boy Named Charlie Brown, which had a similar structure (a doomed attempt to win a spelling bee championship instead of a baseball game) but actually sticks the landing.

Linus’s line “But did you notice something, Charlie Brown? The world didn’t end” tells the audience why we care about what just happened and what the film is trying to communicate. In this case that failure isn’t as scary as you may think and that there is actually something quite admirable about simply trying your best. I’m not saying that this particular story needed to be deep, but it did need ~something~ to tie it all together at the end, and that really bugs me.

Anyways, my point with all of this is that A Boy Named Charlie Brown is the best Peanuts movie and you should go watch it.

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Let's Read Peanuts (Fat-shaming Charlie Brown since 2023) – April 1959

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read along at the official GoComics page or by purchasing the Fantagraphics hardcover collections.

April 1, 1959

The previous strip was funnier, but that was technically in March so I'm talking about this one instead. Either way, I love how hard she owns him in the free marketplace of ideas here and I think it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate it.

His poor brain just blue screened.

April 8, 1959

I kind of like the insight this one gives you into the internal dynamics of Charlie Brown's friend group.

And yeah, it IS kind of weird that Violet and Shermy aren’t friends considering how long they’ve known each other. What’s up with that?

April 14, 1959

I don’t know enough about 1950’s baseball to understand this joke and I don’t care enough about sports in general to bother looking it up.

April 20, 1959

Panel 2 explains why Charlie Brown is the pitcher despite being so bad at it. At least his throws reach the strike zone.

April 25, 1959

I like that it’s not only Charlie Brown that has midnight freakouts like this. 

April 26, 1959

Yeah she’s a jerk but you have to respect that skill. She wasn’t even looking at him.

April 28, 1959

You don’t HAVE to play baseball, you know. There are tons of other sports like footb-

Oh…

Nevermind.

April 30, 1959

Will our heroes win the big game? FIND OUT IN THE NEXT EXCITING EPISODE OF PEANUTS!

Next episode title displays: “Absolute defeat: It’s the manager’s fault!?”

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Let's Read Peanuts (Fat-shaming Charlie Brown since 2023) – March 1959

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read along at the official GoComics page or by purchasing the Fantagraphics hardcover collections.

March 3, 1959

I am artificially increasing the stakes of (and by extension my investment in) this arc by choosing to believe that Charlie Brown is being literal when he says they will kill you if you don’t return your library book on time. 

I'm on the edge of my seat right now!

March 10, 1959

Charlie Brown in a sewer pointing a gun at an FBI agent: “I didn’t steal that book!”

F.B.I. agent: “I don’t care.” (he actually doesn’t care)

March 12, 1959

Jesus Christ, kid. Do you live in Night Vale or something!?

...Actually, that would explain quite a lot.

March 13, 1959

~Somewhere in the distance a man in a balaclava mask lowers his sniper rifle.~

March 15, 1959

That was much more threatening than it had any right to be.

March 18, 1959

Linus fucking rules.

March 20, 1959

~typing sounds~

OK, I kind of get the joke now.

March 27, 1959

And just like that we suddenly have what might be the single most iconic element of this strip: Lucy’s psychiatry booth! 

Because this is Tumblr, I feel like some of you might be tempted to criticize this aspect of the strip as being somehow anti-psychiatry, and you know what? Yeah, it kind of is. But that being said it’s important to remember that this joke was written in 1959 and therapy at the time was… let’s call it “somewhat less helpful” than it is today. In fact in that context I’d argue this is actually some pretty solid social satire of a deeply imperfect social institution.  

Anyways I hope you enjoyed it because you won’t be seeing it again for several more years.

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Let's Read Peanuts (Fat-shaming Charlie Brown since 2023) – February 1959

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read along at the official GoComics page or by purchasing the Fantagraphics hardcover collections.

February 1, 1959

There are very few situations where I’d murder a child but might be one of them.

February 6, 1959

~Somewhere off-screen a wine glass shatters.~

Have I mentioned yet how much I love that poker-faced stare Charlie Brown does when he sees something deeply concerning? It’s such a wonderfully understated expression.

February 9, 1957

Eh. That’s just what it’s like to be over thirty. You get used to it.

February 11, 1959

Honestly? I’m not a fan. Though I do think it’s kind of remarkable that Tennessee Ernie had a voice that sounded like it should have been fictional.

February 15, 1959

They’re only surprised because the snowman isn’t on fire.

February 19, 1959

Charlie Brown is like “Nope! I am not getting stabbed by a strung-out kindergartner over this.”

February 22, 1959

See, it’s moments like this that I think are missing from modern Peanuts media. Charlie Brown may be the universe’s punching bag but a tiny ember of defiance still burns within his heart.

February 25, 1959

I’d argue that when you do math at a high enough level the answers ARE a matter of opinion.

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Let's Read Peanuts (Fat-shaming Charlie Brown since 2023) – January 1959

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read along at the official GoComics page or by purchasing the Fantagraphics hardcover collections.

January 1, 1959

I thought this was a technique she developed specifically to exploit Charlie Brown’s insecurities but apparently she just does this to literally everyone in her life. In fact I think CB is the only one who doesn’t get a list this week.

January 6, 1959

I ~think~ the song in question (there were a several songs called "Stardust" made around now) is the Nat King Cole version:

Which was covered by Billy Ward and The Dominoes in 1957 and hit #12 in the Billboard Top 100.

I don't know, both versions seem pretty good to me. I certainly wouldn't consider the Billy Ward version a gross violation of the original.

January 9, 1959

SHE SAID THE THING!

(Still in my top 5 Peanuts strips almost 10 years in.)

January 12, 1959

This small act of kindness apparently moved Snoopy so much that he was like this for WEEKS. Charlie Brown really needs to stop being weirdly racist to his dog all the time.

January 15, 1959

Joking aside though, this is actually a pretty funny storyline and I dig it. 

January 18, 1959

Solid “lmao” tier strip. Though I don’t buy for a second that she’d fumble a throw like that. We've all seen her throw a punch and know what she's capable of.

January 22, 1959

I mean, It’s 1959. Do you blame her?

January 26, 1959

Ultra rare adult speech balloon spotted in the wild! 

Thoughts:

God damnit, GoComics finally locked the Peanuts archive behind a paywall. I’m going to cough up the dough since I think the strip is worth it and at the end of the day I’m getting my money’s worth BUT I’M NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT! 

The bigger issue is that this also makes it much harder to have you all read along with me since doing so is no longer free. There are definitely still... ways to find the strips online if you’re resourceful enough, but you really shouldn't have to do that for a strip as old and ubiquitous as freakin' Peanuts. That said, if you are willing to spend some money I’d actually suggest the Fantagraphics hardcover collections, which I’ve been purchasing and reading from as we go. The quality is fantastic and I highly recommend them.

On a related note, I also ordered a couple of... other Peanuts related books we may go through at some point. Stay tuned.

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Let's Read Peanuts (You WILL believe an unremarkable white boy can become president) – December 1958

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

December 1, 1958

It’s once again that special time of year where everybody desperately avoids making eye contact with Schroeder.

December 9, 1958

This one baffles me. Normally this kind of joke has a character doing something that cuts against one aspect of their character in order to emphasize another. For example, you might have Snoopy playing baseball with Charlie Brown saying something like “We have the only shortstop that gets drool all over the ball!”. The joke being that while Snoopy is very human in a lot of ways, he’s still a dog.

This strip isn’t rooted in any aspect of Snoopy’s character though. ~Why~ is Snoopy the only dog that can do this? He’s never been bat-like, and while he imitates other animals from time to time he’s never gained their powers in the process. You could have the “ARF” do literally anything and it would make exactly as much sense.

December 11, 1958

Replace “Westerns” with “Anime“ and “Rustlers Roundup” wi-

Actually, you know what? Screw it. We’re doing two edits in the same post. I mean, why not right? It's not like you can stop me. I am not unlike a god* in this respect.

*Specifically, one of those Shinto gods with an extremely niche and hyper-specific domain.

December 12, 1958

And we have our first appearance of Snoopy sleeping on the doghouse!

Why did this end up becoming a central pillar of the strip? No idea! Schulz probably just liked drawing it or something.

December 15, 1958

This joke has been brewing for over two weeks now. It had better be worth the buildup. 

December 16, 1958

It was not worth the buildup.

December 21, 1958

This feels very spiritually in-sync with the Christmas special. You can kind of see how the idea of overtly acknowledging the religious aspects of the holiday will evolve over the next few years. It's also very cute.

December 23, 1958

Oh, great and powerful Claus, conqueror of the skies and master of divine beasts,

Long have we anticipated your return to the realm of man, so that we may once again revel in your perfect judgement upon our wicked souls. Every day we think only of your supreme will. Every hour we enact your glorious purpose. 

Should you deem it a worthy endeavor, I beg of you to shine favor upon his wretched worm. I need not gold nor fame nor even a Nintendo Switch with the limited edition Tears of the Kingdom pro controller. I seek only that my name be immortalized in the sacred pages of the Book of the Nice, so that I would know my daily toil in your name was not in vain. Grace this humble home with your crimson visage, partake of our milk of the cow and sweetened bread (purchased by mine own hands during a long and arduous pilgrimage to the Safeway), and leave not the black stone of shame in your wake.

This I wish, and nothing more. May the generous be spared your righteous anger, and may the blood of the naughty flow so freely that it’s red current floods the world and rises to meet you on your journey across the night sky.

Your lowly servant,

-Linus

P.S.: A bike and some Roblox gift cards would also be nice. Thx in advance.

Thoughts:

OK! Time for the year end roundup! Let’s start with looking at how the style has evolved so far. This time we’ll take a look at…

Lucy!

(March) 1952

(December) 1952

1953

1954

1955

1956

1957

1958

Lucy is kind of interesting in that she changed quite a lot early on, but then doesn't visibly change all that much after 1955 or so. You can tell she's a bit older now and her overall look has shifted with the rest of the strip but on her own terms she's almost exactly the same as she's always been. It's not a mystery why, either. It's just a really solid design that doesn't need to be messed with.

Personality-wise though she's actually changed quite a bit due in no small part to her brother continuing to grow up and become his own person. It's changed a lot about how she interacts with him (talking with him, teaching him stuff, trying to look out for his interests in her own unique way), and this change has altered her relationships with everybody else. I mean, she's still a pain in the ass, but she's now terrorizing people in a more sophisticated and mature way. It's great, and I'm starting to actually like her as a character and not just as a funny antagonistic force (who I thought was kind of awful as a person).

On a larger scale the art hasn't really changed all that much this year but I do think it's been "refined" a bit. Around 1955 the art took that weird shift into a more blocky look (I lovingly call this the "fat kid" Peanuts era) and it always bothered me because I felt like some of the expressiveness and really solid draftsmanship of the early strips got lost in the transition. This year though I think the strip is finally making it work. The line work is a bit more loose and expressive and Schulz getting better at letting the character's unique personalities show through. We also got an uptick in the number of those detailed backgrounds we got in the early days, which was nice to see. Though I suspect that we'll still see fewer of them going forward.

You can also start to see the look of the "classic" peanuts era of the 60s-70s just beginning to emerge, which is pretty neat!

The biggest beneficiary of this year by far though is Snoopy, who's stretchy half-human cartoon look is finally starting to work for him. It's still ~a bit~ awkward and off-putting, but it's at a place now where it works more than it doesn't. I think it's the snout maybe? It was very long and wobbly before but recently it's been drawn in a much more short and round way that's a lot more cute. I don't know, you tell me (Engage the algorithm! Comment! Like! Subscribe!).

1957:

1958:

Overall I'd say that this year was another solid step up from the prior one (which was a step up from the one before that). Still not as good as 1953-1954 but we're getting close.

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Found this today and thought you all might appreciate it.

(Posting this by phone which I don’t usually do, so apologies if this comes out weird)

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Stuff I watched in 2025 - StuGo (The first 3 episodes)

What is it?

A group of kids get swindled into going to a mad scientist’s island stronghold thinking it’s a summer camp but then stay after they find out the truth because hanging out on a mad scientist’s secret lair is awesome. 

Things of Note:

I’m still not sure why this show is called StuGo but that may be the entire joke.

Not everything about this show perfect but OH MY GOD are some of the jokes funny. It’s that same kind of “anything goes” writing that made Adventure Time work back in the day.

So far there’s no hint at any sort of deeper lore or overarching narrative. And you know what? I’m OK with that. In an era when everything is serialized something purely episodic is a breath of fresh air.

The kids came across as a bit random and shallow at first but there’s actually some consistency and depth to them. I wasn’t expecting to like these little freaks as much as I do.

The animation is about what you’d expect from a mid-tier Disney cartoon (think something along the lines of Big City Greens) but some of the things they do with it are incredibly clever. 

Solid voice acting all around. There are some genuinely hilarious line reads in just about every episode. 

The Disney executives must never be allowed to know that this show exists and is actually good. We must guard StuGo’s secrets like we’re the Illuminati covering up who killed JFK (aliens).

Final Verdict:

I don’t want to over-hype this one because at the end of the day it’s still a Disney XD cartoon designed to teach children simple moral lessons about stealing or whatever, but I really do think there’s something special about this one that even adults can enjoy. If you’re the kind of person who’s able to enjoy something like MaoMao or Phineas and Ferb you’ll probably dig StuGo.

...Or you can just check the first episode of the show out for yourself on YouTube and make your own decision.

Stuff I’ve watched so far:

StuGo

Dragonball Daima

DanDanDan

Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home Franklin

Craig Before the Creek

Godspeed

Orion and the Dark.

Day Job

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Let's Read Peanuts (You WILL believe an unremarkable white boy can become president) – November 1958

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

November 5, 1958

If you’re like me you probably have no idea who that is but it turns out that he wrote a LOT of music you’ve probably heard of.

November 12, 1958

Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up!

November 13, 1958

Peanuts doesn’t get enough credit for these little no-dialogue mood pieces. Such a great encapsulation of a silly little moment everybody has had.

November 16, 1958

I would bet serious money that these are drawings of actual photos Schulz took on an actual vacation. 

Not that I’m complaining, this strip looks amazing. In fact I kind of wish more Peanuts media would use this aesthetic. Schulz's characters really pop in photorealistic environments. 

November 17, 1958

Getting a lot of "silly face" strips lately. I’m kind of lukewarm on most of them because the face is usually the entire joke (and often isn't that clever or funny), but this one made me smile.

November 23, 1958

Good panel. 

November 24, 1958

"Comics with threatening auras."

November 29, 1958

YOU HAVE LIKE TWENTY FRIENDS! GO CALL ONE OF THEM!

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Let's Read Peanuts (You WILL believe an unremarkable white boy can become president) – October 1958

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

October 6, 1958

You know, I always found it interesting that children in the US hate school so much. Kids actually ~like~ learning things and spending time with other people in their age cohort, so it’s kind of weird that they treat school like a form of torture. 

Is this one of those “America is uniquely bad at providing any kind of public service” sort of things? Do seven year olds in other countries write cute little songs about murdering their teachers and burning the classroom down? Because I don’t see that shit happening in Anime.

October 7, 1958

“Then what?”

“Then you have to get a job or die of starvation!”

“OK… That’s at least better than going to school right?”

“...”

“Oh my God…”

October 9, 1958

Schulz just really wanted to draw some architecture that day. 

And you know what? I’m OK with that.

October 12, 1958

Linus has the strangest mix of things he can’t do at all and things he can do at an absurdly god-tier level (see: the previous comic). 

That’s not a complaint, btw. I genuinely like this aspect of his character.

October 14, 1958

That is such a fantastic way to depict that particular sound.

October 18, 1958

Put a pin in the fact that Snoopy can’t write for now. 

October 23, 1958

I don’t think you know what a “fanatic” is, Linus. Making weird faces and complaining a lot is just being a fussbuOH MY GOD IT’S GENETIC!

October 31, 1958

I love that the phrase “What if somebody knifes me?” exists in a Peanuts comic

Thoughts

Did you know that there's actually a Peanuts animated series that you probably never heard of? Did you also know that it's probably the best one?

It's called "Peanuts By Schulz" and it's actually a french cartoon that got dubbed into English some time around 2016. It's not doing anything particularly groundbreaking but the animation is expressive, the comedic timing is on-point, and the voice acting is some of the best the franchise has had to date.

You should check it out if you like the strip because it really needs more love.

Unfortunately, while I'd love to tell you all to go out and buy it the show is more or less lost media at this point ever since Amazon stopped hosting it. You can still find some official DVDs (spread out over like 6 separate collections for some stupid reason) but they are out of print and you'll probably need to scour eBay for them. There's just aren't any good options to watch the show legitimately at this point.

That said, I heard a rumor that you can find the whole thing for free on a certain popular video hosting site if you search for the title. But obviously I'd never recommend that kind of thing. Nor would I wish for some enterprising individuals to spread the show around in other digital spaces of questionable legality so that future generations can continue to enjoy this wonderful little cartoon. I actually love the way great shows are constantly allowed die in obscurity and vanish forever and would really hate for that to happen.

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Let's Read Peanuts (You WILL believe an unremarkable white boy can become president) – September 1958

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

September 3, 1958

I like how Charlie Brown went from wanting to be the literal president to wanting to drive a school bus. He is torn between the desire to move armies and shape the course of human history and the desire to make a big car go vroom-vroom.

September 5, 1958

Like me, Charlie Brown is also not sure if that was racist or not.

September 7, 1958

A doomed endeavor, sure. But you can’t fault her strategy. That line about how it’s perfectly normal and common for friends to make out has been responsible for at least 65% of all first gay experiences. 

I don’t even think it’s about being in the closet. Men just really seem to love kissing people platonically.

September 12, 1958

Hey now, I can kind of see it working in a sweet/savory synergy kind of way. It would probably have a bit of a kettle corn vibe to it.

In fact…

~One trip to the kitchen later~

OK, so I was half right. The flavor itself is kind of what I imagined, but the texture is off and raw sugar alone doesn’t actually add enough flavor to work with the saltiness of the chips. It’s more blah than gross, really. If you were to create some kind honey glaze and bake it directly onto the chips though you might have a real winner.

Thank you for joining me for our new recurring segment: LinesOnScreens Reviews Recipes Made by Fictional Preschoolers for No Discernible Reason

September 13, 1958

Schroeder’s otherwise very dapper look here is completely undercut by the fact that he paired a suit jacket with short-shorts.

September 18, 1958

Have we seen Linus use his blanket as a weapon before today? Either way I’m not comfortable with him having access to this sort of firepower.

September 21, 1958

This was such a low-effort con on Lucy's part that I just can’t be mad at her. In fact I'm pretty sure her plan had several more steps we'll never get to see because Charlie Brown took the bait before she could get to the clever part.

September 25, 1958

He’s dead, Linus.

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Let's Read Peanuts (You WILL believe an unremarkable white boy can become president) – August 1958

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

August 5, 1958

I feel like these "Snoopy dancing" strips lack much philosophical punch because they’re coming from the perspective of a bunch of middle class white kids with no real problems. It’s very easy to dance your way through the sorrows of the world if you’re never going to be on the receiving end of them.

August 8, 1958

I know what you’re thinking and no, it’s not ridiculous for him to get a haircut. Charlie Brown canonically has a full head of blonde hair and this has been confirmed by Schulz himself. You can even kind of see it on the back of his head in panel 2.

August 10, 1958

When you look at Charlie Brown’s face in panel 7 you realize that this wasn’t Schulz exaggerating the amount of sand for comedic effect. Pigpen just broke the laws of physics and it cost Charlie Brown like four sanity points.

August 14, 1958

In some cultures blue and green are the same color. Just saying.

August 15, 1958

I know that’s basically the same thing as most popular brands of jelly but still, ew.

August 23, 1958

I love Linus’s air-drawing shtick. In addition to wishing I had a mind capable of using the air as a sketchbook, I really like the idea that if you were to actually track his hand movements you’d uncover some absolutely jaw-dropping drawings. 

Anyway, do you think the rain washed away his air drawings? I say it did.

August 25, 1958

Another big first: Charlie Brown’s pencil-pal!

Man, the internet really took the magic out of talking to people in other countries, didn't it? You used to have to sign up for a whole-ass program to find out what other kids in Germany like to eat but now you do it just about every day without really even meaning to just by playing Marvel Rivals.

BTW, I'm still mad at you, Hasim! You totally wasted your Scarlet Witch ult and cost us the entire match!

August 29, 1958

Imagine getting this letter and then realizing that this kid knows your home address.

Thoughts:

“Dear pencil-pal,

I cut myself playing in the park today, but I felt nothing. It would seem that even the sight of my life essence leaving my body no longer stirs my passions. Am I broken? If so, is there any hope of fixing something so fundamentally wretched? I swear, It seems these days that the only thing that makes me feel alive is the fires I set in the abandoned buildings downtown. At least, I’m pretty sure they’re abandoned…

Also, my dog just started doing this thing where he sleeps with his head in his water dish and it’s HILARIOUS! I wish you could see it. Do you have dogs?

Your friend,

Charlie Brown”

P.S.: Sorry about the bloodstains on the letter. 

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Let's Read Peanuts (You WILL believe an unremarkable white boy can become president) – July 1958

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

July 1, 1958

Oh my God, PLEASE MOVE ON! This bit can’t support an entire week of comics.

July 4, 1958

What on Earth…

…is wrong with Charlie Brown’s face? Did Schulz’s pen leak on him or something? Was there just no whiteout available?

July 12, 1958

~googles~

Eh. I would, but I wouldn’t brag about it or anything.

Apparently Van Cliburn was a piano prodigy whose career took off like a rocket around this time in 1958 after winning something called the the Inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition. Apparently the recording of it was so popular that it topped the charts in a completely unprecedented way, particularly for a classical pianist. From there he basically made a career of playing for just about every head of state, ever.

Like Schroeder, his talents were discovered when he was just three years old and he was known to just spend all his time practicing the classics until 4am every night, so Lucy isn’t just pulling this comparison out of her ass.

He also turned out to be gay. Make of this what you will.

Anyway, he was pretty good and is worth checking out:

July 13, 1958

I choose to believe that this strip happened immediately after the previous one.

July 17, 1958

I know it’s a classic cartoon dog thing, but the way Snoopy talks about cats has always made me just a bit uncomfortable. 

Chill out, Snoopy. Jesus…

July 19, 1958

Linus’s dad is going to lose his shit when he realizes his son used one of his autographed baseballs to play fetch with the neighbor’s dog.

July 27, 1958

OK first off, you did this to yourself and you damn well know it.

Second, just run over and give her the music box while she’s still surprised. The iron is still hot!

Third, It wouldn’t have worked anyway. I don’t know what you did to piss her off but a music box isn’t fixing that shit.

Finally, teenage Lucy will be a nightmare for everyone involved. I’m not sure about the specifics but I’m pretty sure the president will receive a briefing on it at some point.

July 31, 1958

Spoiler: Lucy and Linus later learn to communicate with bugs. I'm not kidding.

And apparently they DO understand us, to an upsetting degree.

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Let's Read Peanuts (You WILL believe an unremarkable white boy can become president) – June 1958

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

June 1, 1958

Agnes knows her shit.

June 4, 1958

I live by the millisecond. My perception of time is impossible for mere mortals to comprehend.

June 9, 1958

The fact that they reached the championship at all is further proof that their team isn’t actually as bad as Charlie Brown thinks it is. That or there were only a few teams in the league this year so they jumped right to the end of the season, I suppose.

Also, lmao.

June 12, 1958

Still catching that ball. This is basically Schulz’s Namek saga.

June 13, 1958

And then Namek blew up and Goku died... 

June 19, 1958

Schroeder continues to be an upstanding dude (mostly). He's clearly devastated but is still making an effort to see things from Charlie Brown's perspective and is doing his best to be considerate(ish). It's something you see a lot over the years and it's one of his most endearing traits.

June 22, 1958

All I have to say about this one is that this panel is perfect and I love it.

June 24, 1958

There are a few punchlines this month that are like this and they all feel weirdly out of place. It's the kind of joke you'd expect to have seen a year or two ago when Linus was still a literal toddler.

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Let's Read Peanuts (You WILL believe an unremarkable white boy can become president) – May 1958

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

May 2, 1958

Well. This one sure… aged, didn’t it?

May 3, 1958

They have such an insanely interesting relationship. 

May 4, 1958

Did Schulz get to the end of this comic and fall down a rabbit hole while drawing Charlie Brown’s blanket? Or did he wake up at 3am with a vision of that pattern from God and then proceeded to write an entire Sunday strip to justify drawing it? Tragically, we can never know for sure.

May 7, 1958

I call this storyline “I saw my dog do a funny thing this morning and now it’s your problem for the rest of the week/next several decades.”

May 16, 1958

Was he… actually flying?

May 18, 1958

Another strip of people yelling at stuff off screen. You know what that means.

(Again, that's Uncle Michael from Blind Alley. I will never get tired of that drawing)

May 25, 1958

~An insanely gifted player on your team makes an amazing catch while actively fighting a dog~

Charlie Brown: "Life sucks. Why is my job so hard???"

May 30, 1958

In my head-canon he’s not making a joke here. Charlie Brown is literally a Beatnik and after this conversation he snuck into a jazz club where he read three hours of spoken word poetry about the crushing conformity of modern society while ripped on bennies. 

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Let's Read Peanuts (You WILL believe an unremarkable white boy can become president) – April 1958

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

April 2, 1958

Children, please. Your Dads are both middle aged men living in America during the 1950s. They BOTH have a dogshit understanding of foreign policy.

April 4, 1958

Oh my GOOOOD, shut the hell up and ask one of your many, many friends for an umbrella or something.

April 6, 1958

I wonder if this was an intentional callback to that earlier strip from a while back? Either way, that panel rules.

April 10, 1958

OK, so apparently High Fidelity (or Hi-Fi) sound was really taking off around this time. It was basically just a mishmash of various new recording techniques and electronic gizmos that let you have a much more authentic and clear sound than was previously possible.

I guess advertisers were miss-applying the term a lot? Schulz certainly dedicated a lot of strips to the topic this month so it must have been fairly annoying.

April 16, 1958

New baseball arc! Linus continues to be low-key terrifying.

April 20, 1958

Being around Charlie Brown while he’s trying to fly a kite must be like being a side-character in some sort of PG-rated Final Destination movie. 

April 26, 1958

Proof that the problem has always been Charlie Brown’s managerial skills. Which makes when you realize that his team is a pack of superhuman freaks who should be constantly crushing their competition. 

Overall a good arc. The jokes are solid and it’s got a nice twist that I only saw coming because these strips are woven into the American psyche on a subatomic level.

April 30, 1958

God damn, kid.

Thoughts:

This is one of those months you really want to go and read all of if you’ve only been following what I post (which you shouldn't be! Shame on you!). I had to whittle out an unusually large number of strips this month and I feel bad because there were some real gems in there.

God I wish I could just comment on every single strip sometimes. Damn you, copyright laws!

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Let's Read Peanuts (You WILL believe an unremarkable white boy can become president) – March 1958

There are lots of great strips I just don't have room to comment on. I strongly encourage everybody to read the full month at the official GoComics page. Today's month starts HERE.

March 6, 1958

It’s working, don’t question it!

This is our second kite-flying arc. Not as funny and iconic as the one from 1956, but not bad.

March 9, 1958

She’s talking about the Asian Flu epidemic which was basically Covid before Covid. It started somewhere in China and worked its way to the US around September of 1957 where it ultimately killed over 100k people (1.1 million globally). It wasn’t anywhere near as sensational or disruptive as Covid (probably due to it not being quite as deadly and a focus on vaccinations rather than lockdowns) but it's still considered one of the most deadly pandemics of all time and it had a good chunk of the country out of commission for a while. To give you a sense of the scale of the event, apparently US schools had around 22% of kids out sick at once during the peak and in the UK it was as high as 50%. 

Anyway, I guess my point here is that Lucy is wrong and the Asian flu was definitely not over “six months ago”. It was 2-3 months at most, and in my book that’s a perfectly respectable time frame to die of a plague in.

March 10, 1958

These same kids in 2024: “Kids these days don’t have any imagination anymore because of the internet!“

March 11, 1958

Charlie Brown's ride is rad as hell and I unironically think they should make a series of preschool pedal cars based on classic 1950s hot rods. 

March 12, 1958

Apparently $10 in 1958 was the equivalent of $108.01 today. O_o’

March 13, 1958

Today I learned that Charlie Brown's dad canonically beats him with an electric razor.

March 17, 1958

I had to look this one up. Apparently he’s talking about Eisenhower’s press secretary. 

James Hagerty - Wikipedia

March 23, 1958

Yes! YESSSS!!! My man finally did it! Get wrecked Lucy!