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Let's Read Peanuts (Only 45 more years to go!) – April 1955

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 3, 1955

I think this is the first time we see Linus’s blanket treated as an addiction.

April 4, 1955

And that is why Pig-pen shall never set eyes upon the kingdom of heaven.

April 10, 1955

Repeated joke from a while back but that panel of the glove floating away justifies it’s existence.

April 11, 1955

Continuity!

April 13, 1955

I am choosing to interpret this as Schroeder having actual fireworks and lasers and shit when he performs publicly.

April 19, 1955

OK, yes. You’ve discovered Zipatone. You can stop now.

April 20, 1955

See? SEE!? She noticed too!

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Let's Read Peanuts (Only 45 more years to go!) – March 1955

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 1, 1955

Like a third of this month’s strips are dedicated to this LARPing as a martian bit.

March 9, 1955

What the actual hell is this face Linus is making?

March 11, 1955

Lucy has started yelling at insects. A recurring gag that will have a surprising amount of staying power.

March 13, 1955

FORCED PERSPECTIVE DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOOD NIGHT!

March 18, 1955

Settle down, Beavis.

March 27, 1955

God damn, Charlie Brown is getting fed up with Lucy’s bullshit.

March 31, 1955

I appreciate the creative use of Zipatones in this one.

Thoughts:

Is it just me or does Charlie Brown still seem a bit shell-shocked from last month’s existential beatdown by Patty? It’s like his entire personality suddenly got about 20% more deadpan at the start of this month.

Actually, it might be my imagination but the whole style of the strip seems to have shifted ever so slightly recently both in the type of emotional reactions we’re getting and in the way the kids are drawn. They’re just a smidge more… Rounded? Hefty? How do I say Charlie Brown looks kind of fat without offending anybody?

You can really see the difference if you compare this month’s strips to one’s from a couple years ago.

I think a lot of it has to do with how small Schulz is drawing faces these days (which has the added effect of making them less expressive) as well as the general shape language he’s been using. The cast (especially Charlie Brown) we’re always a bit pear-shaped but they had fairly narrow shoulders which gave them a kind of triangle or cone shape overall. Recently though Schulz has been letting the shoulders stick out more as well as making everyone significantly wider overall. This has had the effect of changing that triangle into more of a rectangular box and is making everyone look just a wee bit more heavyset as a result.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing, though I'll admit I kind of prefer the earlier look. Mostly though, to me this shift kind of marks the final end of the scrappy chaos gremlin version of Charlie Brown we've seen up until now and the emergence of Charlie Brown as the universe's punching bag. He just doesn't push back at the world the way he used to going forward. Patty apparently owned him so hard in the marketplace of ideas that it fundamentally shifted his personality, and by extension, the way the universe is presented to us. Honestly, I'm impressed.

It's kind of sad because I liked those more active aspects of his character. Everybody dumping on him made a lot more sense when it was understood that he was kind of a jerk in his own way and ultimately the author of his own misery. But that's just the nature of art and long-form storytelling I suppose. It either moves forward and evolves or goes stale and dies. So it goes.

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Let's Read Peanuts (Only 45 more years to go!) – February 1955

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.

February 1, 1955

And that's the last we see of Charlotte Braun.

I feel like she might have worked as a character if Schulz had actually played up the angle of them looking so much alike. He could have used those parallels to draw attention to the ways that Charlie Brown interacts with the world and why he struggles so much (and why Charlotte doesn't). Or he could have played up the similarities in their personalities in order to make Charlie Brown deal with his own bullshit from the other side of things. It could have been a really good angle in the right hands.

Oh well.

February 5, 1955

I was going to say something or other about how Snoopy is talking out loud here but then I got completely sidetracked by the fact that Charlie Brown's house is canonically purple.

February 9, 1955

Hank Hill voice: “That boy ain't right...”

February 15, 1955

...the hell?

~googles~

OK, so apparently "parity" is a term in agriculture for a guarantee the government makes ensuring that a farmer will make back a certain percentage of their expenses. The government sets a “parity index” based on how much certain commodities cost to make at a certain point in time and then sets rules on minimum prices based on a percentage of that index price (in Charlie Brown's case, 90%). Doing this protects smaller farmers from getting undersold into extinction by larger organizations or regional cost differences.

And now you know!

February 22, 1955

There will be ~so many~ strips of Snoopy pretending to be various animals. I hope you're prepared.

February 27, 1955

Lucy, the Beethoven shrine should really be a wake up call that you might be dodging a bullet here.

February 28, 1955

Holy shit, look at his eyes. She crushed this poor kid's soul.

Thoughts:

RIP to a real one.

She will be missed. By somebody. Probably.

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Let's Read Peanuts (Only 45 more years to go!) – January 1955

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.

January 9, 1955

I'm pretty sure I gave myself a black eye doing this as a kid.

Twice.

January 17, 1955

Oh. She's still around. Fantastic.

January 22, 1955

There are these little hints every now and then that Schroeder is some kind of professional piano wunderkind doing big shows when he's not on camera. I think that's a neat detail.

January 25, 1955

The time shenanigans have begun.

Charlie Brown turned 4 years old on October 30th of 1950. Patty was significantly taller than CB was, which would mean she was at least 4½-5 years old at the time. If she's 5½ now that would mean that at most a year has passed in just over four years of strips.

Except that Schroeder was clearly around 1 year old when he was introduced in May of 1951, which should make him 2 at most now. But that doesn't make sense because he seems to be around the same age as Lucy (if not slightly older), who claims in this strip to be just over 4. That's at least 3-3½ years of time passing.

So either Schroeder and Lucy aging more quickly than they should be, or Patty, Charlie Brown, and the rest of the gang are aging more slowly.

Oh, but it gets weirder. In addition to looking much closer to 4 years old than 2, Schroeder being 4½ years old would mean that he's gotten 3½ years older in 3½ years of comics. An almost perfect match, which kind of implies that the Peanuts timeline is moving in sync with our own. But if that's the case then why are Patty and Charlie Brown not 7-8 years old at this point? Why were they still in elementary school in 1999? Are they trapped in some kind of time-anomaly, doomed to live eternally as children as the years slowly but inevitably weigh down upon their souls and sanity?

Yes. Yes they are.

Anyways, I guess my point is that trying to keep track of things like this in Peanuts is a recipe for madness and it only makes less sense from here.

January 26, 1955

OK, you saw that right!? Snoopy was clearly thinking in panel 1 but in panel 2 he's using a normal speech bubble.

I'm just going to say it: This proves Snoopy can outright talk like a person. This is canon now.

Also apparently Charlie Brown just outright overheard him do it just now. Which explains a LOT about their relationship over the next several decades.

January 27, 1955

Is... that an F-bomb joke?

January 31, 1955

One.

Joke.

Thoughts:

Actually, trying to sort out all of the stuff that doesn't make sense in Peanuts is incredibly fun. I highly recommend it

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Stuff I Watched in 2024 – Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home Franklin (TV Special):

What is it?

Welcome Home Franklin is the latest in a recent series of Peanuts TV specials premiering exclusively on Apple TV+. This one is a retelling of how Franklin came to be a part of the Peanuts gang.

Things of Note:

Friendship ended with Linus. Now Franklin is Charlie Brown's best friend. No, really. That's canon now.

Gorgeous animation, good music, great performances, and lots of interesting references to black culture for the kids watching to learn about.

Lots of nods to the strip as well. They even threw in a wonderful little dig at the weird way they had him sitting apart from everybody in Thanksgiving special.

Okay, I know I joke too much about Peanuts characters being gay and I promise to knock it off going forward, but but I swear to God the creators may have actually been going for some kind of queer subtext here.

Questions about the nature of their relationship aside, Charlie Brown and Franklin actually work really damn well as friends. It turns out Peanuts really benefits from there being at least one character who's unambiguously in Charlie Brown's corner.

This shift in his character also solves the age old problem of the franchise not knowing what the hell to do with Franklin (“Make him rap maybe???”). As a result this is the first time he's has really felt like he belonged in the same main-character tier as Lucy, Linus, etc.

Speaking of Linus, what the hell man!? You ditch your main bro without even a word for Pigpen!? You sicken me!

Final Verdict:

I'd definitely recommend this one. The story is hardly reinventing the wheel but it's solidly written, beautifully drawn, and has a ton of heart to it. The Apple TV+ specials have really been knocking it out of the park lately and this one is probably the best of the bunch. Go check it out!

(Happier Than The Sun by Stevie Wonder is playing while this gif takes place. Make of that what you will.)

Stuff I've watched so far in 2024:

Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home Franklin

Craig Before the Creek

Godspeed

Orion and the Dark.

Day Job

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A few more of these left to go still. I apologize if they're annoying but also I'm not going to stop posting them even if they are.

As always, let me know if there's anything particularly good out in the animation world that I should see. I'm always looking for new stuff to watch.

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Let's Read Peanuts (Yup, still at it) – December 1954

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, 1954

The Charlotte Braun Saga continues. I'm just going to post as many of these strips as I can because she's only around for a bit and we should cherish her baffling presence while we can.

December 2, 1954

...What?

December 3, 1954

One personality trait. ONE!

December 4, 1954

Is it possible for preschoolers to have strong “divorced” energy?

December 7, 1954

SUCH a good character.

December 8, 1954

OK, this one was actually decent.

December 23, 1954

Psychic.

Powers.

Also god damnit Charlie Brown just let that poor kid be gayweird!

Thoughts:

Another year down! Let's see how some of our favorite weirdos have progressed, shall we?

Charlie Brown

(October) 1950

(December) 1950

1951

1952

1953

1954

Linus

(September) 1952

(December) 1952

1953

1954

Patty

(October) 1950

(December) 1950

1951

1952

1953

1954

Not a huge shift in the art from last year as far as I can tell but there's still some evolution taking place.

The main difference I noticed is a reversal of the trend I saw between 1952 and 1953 where the kids were getting taller and their heads were getting smaller. Now they actually look shorter and with larger heads BUT the faces are getting smaller as well, which is a bit of an odd effect when you stop and stare at it. Additionally, I'm noticing some simplification in the kind of expressions he tends to work with. Yes, they've always been pretty simple but I think they're a smidge less nuanced than they were last year.

Now that I stop and really look at it the whole art style is getting a bit simpler. If you go back to the stuff in 52' and look for a character in an unusual pose you'll notice that the character's forms are all pretty complex and well-defined to the point where you could probably make a 3D model of the panel without much guesswork. That's still there for the most part but there are more drawing shortcuts being used than there used to be (probably for time/sanity purposes) which creates a slightly different feel. This can also be seen in many of the backgrounds which are still amazing when they want to be, but are now often fairly minimalist wit a single line representing grass or where the floor meets a wall.

Again, just to be clear I'm not saying the art is getting ~bad~, just more streamlined. It's kind of an inevitability when you work on a project like this for a long time because drawing is freaking exhausting and those little shortcuts can translate into hours of saved effort.

Art aside, this was a pretty cool year for the strip. We got Schroeder ascending to his final form as the person Lucy won't leave alone, Linus obtaining his blanket and developing superpowers, the golf tournament that went nowhere and taught us nothing, several of my all-time favorite strips, and the introduction of two equally timeless and beloved new characters. Good stuff.

Anyways that's it for 1954. Next time: 1955!

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Stuff I Watched in 2024 – Craig Before the Creek (Movie):

What is it?

Craig Of The Creek is an animated series on Cartoon Network about a boy named Craig and his adventures in the titular creek. It's a bit hard to describe but basically think about the make-believe adventures you had with your friends as a kid, expand that to an entire secret society of children, and then have everybody be 110% committed to the bit at all times. It's charming as hell and I highly recommend it.

Craig Before the Creek is a prequel movie which explains how Craig became Of The Creek.

Things of Note:

If you like the show you will like this movie. In my case I liked it even more.

Might not be for everybody since it doesn't really care about or cater to any adults in the audience the way some shows like Gravity Falls or Adventure Time did.

The movie does a decent job reintroducing the premise and characters so you don't need to have watched the show to enjoy it.

Generally pretty well animated. There's some strong background paintings and expression work in this one. It kind of reminds me of Steven Universe a bit.

Everyone is good but Kelsey as a wandering mercenary for hire steals the entire movie.

I like that the villain actually makes an actual effort with her “join the dark side” speech/song. Way too often it feels like there's no way that anybody would ever go for what they're offering.

Sooo.... is magic real now? Normally it's pretty clear that the kids are just using their imaginations but CBTC really blurs the line.

No, really. I'm pretty sure the McGuffin actually started the apocalypse at one point.

Final Verdict:

A really solid prequel to a really solid show. Which is impressive if you think about it because good prequels are hard to make and kind of rare. If you like goofy kid's stuff then you'll probably enjoy this.

Which reminds me, I really need to finish watching Craig of the Creek at some point.

Stuff I've watched this year:

Craig Before the Creek

Godspeed

Orion and the Dark.

Day Job

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Let's Read Peanuts (Yup, still at it) – November 1954

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 4, 1954

Future homeowner's association material right here, folks.

November 14, 1954

I love the hints of 50s décor you see in the backgrounds of some of these Sunday strips.

November 16, 1954

It's weird to think about how Alaska and Hawaii becoming US states is actually a relatively recent development.

November 23, 1954

That would be a good title for a TV special, actually.

Also, I felt compelled to make this because small children swearing is the height of comedy.

November 25, 1954

A good example of something Schulz does well, which is making a fairly complex point in a very simple and easy to understand way.

November 28, 1954

Reading this and knowing that balloons make up like a third of all infant/toddler choking deaths is giving me anxiety.

November 30, 1954

Oh shit she's here, people! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

Thoughts:

OK, so where to even start with this one. You know how Pig-pen is essentially a gimmick character that was built around a single quirky trait? Well there were a few of them over the years and this latest one is Charlotte Braun, a Charlie Brown lookalike who is loud.

That's it. That is literally every single thing there is to know about her.

Why does she look like Charlie Brown? Hell if I know. Does she offer any interesting similarities or contrasts to Charlie Brown's personality? Nope! Is she at least likeable on her own terms? LMAO, I say to you. It's a completely baffling decision and the only explanation I can think of is that Schulz was throwing everything to the wall to see what stuck and Charlotte not only didn't stick but bounced back and hit him in the balls.

Naturally, everyone was confused and annoyed by Charlotte's introduction and in just barely over 2 months she was quietly dropped and never mentioned again after a fan (and probably many others, let's be honest) wrote Schulz to complain about it.

His response letter was pretty hilarious as well:

---

Dear Miss Swaim, I am taking your suggestion regarding Charlotte Braun and will eventually discard her. If she appears anymore it will be in strips that were already completed before I got your letter or because someone writes in saying that they like her. Remember, however, that you and your friends will have the death of an innocent child on your conscience. Are you prepared to accept such responsibility?

Thanks for writing, and I hope that future releases will please you.

Sincerely,

Charles M. Schulz.

---

~Chef's kiss~

In case I forget to mention it when it comes up (and I probably will) her last strip is on February 1st 1955. She makes a whopping 10 appearances in total.

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Stuff I Watched in 2024 – Godspeed (Cartoon Pilot):

What is it?

Godspeed is a 30 min pilot that was Kickstarted by the guy who made Final Space, an absolutely wonderful show which is sadly now lost media (please consider pirating it from somewhere if you get the chance). It's about a young woman named Iris and her struggles to survive on a post-apocalyptic earth after any hope for rescue has long since gone.

Things of Note:

Available for free on YouTube so it's a real easy watch. I watched it on BluRay though because I helped fund it (Yes, my name is in the credits somewhere).

Content warning for some pretty bleak subject matter including grief and suicide. It's handled well for what it's worth.

I'm both really happy that Olan Rogers got this done and really impressed at how quick the turnaround was.

I really think that Final Space fans will like this one. It feels a lot like that show did in it's more serious moments.

Animation is a bit choppy but the colors are very nice and it's got a good atmosphere. I suspect a full show would look phenomenal.

You don't get much time with the characters but what you do get is fairly impactful.

It's a bit meh in the humor department, which is weird for an Olan Rogers deal, but humor is barely a focus so who cares. I can see a full show developing this aspect (specifically the robot friend) into something pretty good.

My biggest complaint is actually the DVD menu music. It's only ten seconds long which meant it looped in a very obvious way a LOT before I actually started the thing. Such a weird and obvious oversight.

No, you don't understand. I ~really~ think you will enjoy this if you were a fan of Final Space.

Final Verdict:

A solid start to what could be a pretty engaging show. I really want this one to succeed.

Stuff I've watched so far:

Godspeed

Orion and the Dark.

Day Job

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I actually have a bunch of these I've been putting off doing so I'm going to try and just hammer them out over the next few days. Apologies in advance for people who are just here for the Peanuts stuff.

As always, let me know if there's anything particularly good out in the animation world that I should see. I'm always looking for new stuff to watch.

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Holy crap you guys! That's like... 95 more people that I ever thought would care about this thing. Thank you so much!

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Let's Read Peanuts (Yup, still at it) – October 1954

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 3, 1954

The joke is fine but I really like the extra effort Schulz put into the backgrounds in this one. The texture on that brick is phenomenal.

October 12, 1954

Pictured: Me when I talk with my friends about Peanuts these days.

October 16, 1954

Violet, nobody is making you hang you with him.

Wait, she's like 5 so maybe somebody is. Carry on, I guess.

October 17, 1954

And now we know what Linus's blanket is made out of.

(Looks pretty comfy, actually)

October 24, 1954

Wait, that last strip was canon??

Also, God damn that was some ice cold shit, Charlie Brown. Schroeder's going to need more than a blanket after this one.

October 28, 1954

The fussbudget thing had faded into the background for a while but Schulz has been dusting it off lately.

October 31, 1954

I remember doing the cup-on-a-string thing as a kid and it more or less went exactly like this.

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Let's Read Peanuts (Yup, still at it) – September 1954

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 1, 1954

New headcanon: Charlie Brown can actually do this and everyone is constantly terrified of this unstable four year old and his massive personal army.

OK, maybe not ~everyone~. It's still Charlie Brown.

September 9, 1954

That time Pig-pen briefly started a cult.

September 12, 1954

Yup, card towers (particularly this specific photocopied card tower) are a thing now.

Actually, now that I think about it I'm genuinely curious how you'd “cut and paste” something in 1954. It's not like they had Xerox machines on every floor.

September 17, 1954

Thought experiment: If Charlie Brown were a car, what kind of car would he be?

I'm thinking a Ford Fiesta. It's small, cheap, has a bit of personality (but not too much), and only occasionally has a complete and total breakdown.

September 19, 1954

I love early Snoopy.

September 24, 1954

She absolutely did this and you can't convince me otherwise.

September 26, 1954

In case you were wondering what Pig-pen looks like when clean.

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Let's Read Peanuts (Yup, still at it) – August 1954

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 3, 1954

That is a very well drawn house of cards.

August 5, 1954

Linus's other weird hangup is introduced.

August 7, 1954

I try and avoid posting strips where all I have to say is “lmao”

but...

August 8, 1954

No, YOU FOOL!

I know you don't want to ask the new kid because you're still not sure if it's sanitary to touch an object he's come in contact with, but trust me even in the worst case scenario you'll regret asking him less.

August 16, 1954

This feels passive-aggressive to me. Look at Pig-pen's body language in panel 2.

Aug 20, 1954

Posting this because there's a TON of strips about Lucy refusing to believe things that are obviously true and I feel I should have at least one represented.

August 25, 1954

Clearly, that was an “F” key

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Let's Read Peanuts (Yup, still at it) – July 1954

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.

Jul 3, 1954

I like it. It's not as iconic as the single black stripe but it creates an interesting visual effect.

Jul 5, 1954

I can't believe Charlie Brown is calling me out like this.

Jul 8, 1954

Jul 13, 1954

Well look who it is!

Also I'd totally forgotten that Pigpen (sorry, 'Pig-pen') was actually an insult rather than an affectionate nickname. I feel so bad for him now.

Jul 14, 1954

Kick her ass Pig-pen!

Actually, wait. She would break you in half without even really trying.

Give her a piece of your mind from a safe distance Pig-pen!

Jul 17, 1954

I like that Schulz does a lot of playing against expectations with Pig-pen. It makes him more interesting than his setup of "the kid who likes dirt" would normally be.

Jul 18, 1954

You should ask the girls. They could probably come up with something.

Thoughts:

Pig-pen rules. He's not exactly deep or complex but he seems like a good dude living his best life and it's hard not to respect someone who's that unapologetic about who he is.

Wikipedia tells me Pig-pen only features in 100 or so Peanuts strips which, if true, is kind of insane considering how iconic he is. That would mean that this month alone represents like 1/10th of his total run. He's all over the specials/movies/merch though, which is probably why he's so recognizable.

Another interesting thing about Pig-pen is that he's the first in a long line of attempts to expand the cast with a wacky new addition that has exactly one (1) personality trait. How Pig-pen alone managed to stand the test of time when the rest were almost immediately shuffled off into the background is beyond me, though I suspect it has a lot to do with his unique design and the aforementioned fact that he rules.

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Let's Read Peanuts (Yup, still at it) – June 1954

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.

Jun 1, 1954

First appearance of Linus's blanket!

Gee, I wonder why Linus might feel insecure?

Jun 6, 1954

There were no survivors

Jun 7, 1954

Daw! :3

Jun 8, 1954

Does she though?

This was a reference to a popular kid's show at the time called “Ding Dong School” in case you were curious.

Jun 11, 1954

Adding this to my list of mean pranks to play on small children at some point. It's right below "tell them they were purchased at K-mart".

Jun 20, 1954

Ladies and gentlemen, the world's most accurate game of telephone.

Thoughts:

God damn, Schulz was on fire this month, wasn't he? Just an entire month of bangers. It was actually a bit hard to find examples which I had more to say about than just “LMAO”.

Be worse at your job, Schulz!

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Let's Read Peanuts (Yup, still at it) – May 1954

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 3, 1954

~tugs collar~

Yeah... About that.

May 9, 1954

Aw yeah, here we go! I was wondering when this would pop up.

May 15, 1954

1) That's not a joke

2) Yes, Violet. I got that from him kicking the radio.

Also I hope you enjoyed this strip because “Charlie Brown doesn't like coconut” is now a running gag.

May 16, 1954

This definitively proves that adults exist in the Peanuts Cinematic Universe, they just happen to be 20 feet tall for some reason. Or maybe the kids are like 2 feet tall? It depends on how you look at it I guess.

May 23, 1954

Oh man! What's going to happen!? I'm freaking out!

May 24, 1954

Lucy is so unbelievably awful to Linus in these early years. Granted, she's literally four(?) years old so I can cut her a bit of slack but god damn do these kind of interactions not endear you to her.

Weirdly enough though, I actually like that the strip doesn't punish her for doing stuff like this. Others have made this observation long before I came along but the fact that Schulz is willing to just sort of... let bad things happen without immediately having the universe make an example of the perpetrator or teach them a lesson is one of the things that sets Peanuts apart from the competition. Life just kind of be like that sometimes and it's OK to show it.

May 30, 1954

(No, really. That's the last one)

Thoughts:

The golf tournament arc is kind of notorious and nobody really knows what the hell is up with it. You have continuity in the Sunday strips (very unusual due to how they are made), weird off-model art, the cast acting out of character, and of course, on-screen adults. Then it all just kind of... stops. It's very odd.

I've heard people speculate that this might actually have been ghost drawn (is that a term?) by another artist but I'm not sure if I buy that. The art is a bit different but it still very much feels like Schulz to me, particularly in how he draws his backgrounds. I ~do~ think there might be something to the idea that this is a repurposed experiment from another project though.

What this feels like to me is Schulz experimenting with “bigger” stories, perhaps something intended to be sold as a proper comic book rather than just a collection of strips. The art looks different because he's trying to set it apart from the strips by adding more detail and action (kind of like when an animated TV sitcom gets a theatrical movie).

As for why it just ends like that? Well that's a sort of punchline Schulz does in a lot in his daily strips so it's not actually that weird if you think about it. I think he just didn't realize that this kind of anticlimax punchline works with a 4-panel strip but not a 4-page event comic.

There's no official word on the matter though so your guess is as good as mine.

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Let's Read Peanuts (Yup, still at it) – April 1954

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.

Apr 1, 1954

Lucy's been min/max-ing her strength stat I see.

Apr 6, 1954

This is such a fantastic way of depicting static.

Apr 11, 1954

~The skys part and the ancient Mesopotamian god Enlil descends from the heavens~

IT'S GOING TO CLEAR UP!!!

Apr 13, 1954

Brutal. I love it.

Apr 18, 1954

Patty is an underrated character.

Apr 22, 1954

There's something I really like about the fact that it's the original core cast all together in this one.

Apr 26, 1954

This is most likely a Liberace reference. He was at the top of his career around this point.

I don't want to make assumptions, but I'm getting the distinct feeling that this guy might be gay.

("This guy" being Schroeder.)