{"id":1661,"date":"2014-03-22T03:13:41","date_gmt":"2014-03-22T08:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/?p=1661"},"modified":"2014-03-21T18:14:54","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T23:14:54","slug":"review-the-complete-peanuts-1950-to-1952","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/2014\/03\/review-the-complete-peanuts-1950-to-1952\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Complete Peanuts, 1950 to 1952"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This review was first posted in May of 2004.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952 (Vol. 1) (The Complete Peanuts)<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, by Charles M. Schulz, is the first of a series of books to be published over the next twelve years, containing the complete run of Peanuts<\/i> cartoons from October of 1952 until Schulz\u2019s retirement, a span of nearly fifty years. I bought it for two reasons.<\/p>\n

The first is purely nostalgic. During most of my life, the only Peanuts<\/i> cartoons I read in the newspaper were the Sunday strips. The daily strips weren\u2019t on the usual comics page; instead, they were just inside the front page, which I seldom looked at. Thus, my knowledge of Charlie Brown et al<\/i> came from a handful of Peanuts<\/i> collections, most of which I inherited from my siblings, and all of which were from the first ten years of the strip\u2019s existence. I read them over and over. And many of the ones I remember best are from the time period covered by this current collection.<\/p>\n

The other reason is that I\u2019m a comic strip junkie, and I especially like watching comic strips evolve. There\u2019s always a period of time during which the cartoonist is figuring out how his characters are drawn, and what personalities they have, and I find it fascinating to watch. In this case, I also found it fascinating to re-read the same cartoons I\u2019d loved as a kid, and see things that had gone completely over my head.<\/p>\n

Here are a number of things I noticed as I was reading it.<\/p>\n

As the strip begins, there are only four major characters: Shermy, Patty (who is not<\/i> the Peppermint Patty of the later years), Charlie Brown, and Snoopy. Shermy and Patty are the big kids\u2014they both go to school (though it might only be kindergarten). Charlie Brown is the little kid in the neighborhood; he doesn\u2019t go to school yet. And the kind of problems Charlie Brown has with Patty and Shermy (though mostly with Patty) are the kind of problems any little kid has with the Big Kids. Interestingly, there\u2019s a clear scent of on-again\/off-again romance between Patty and Shermy. Snoopy, meanwhile, is just a dog. He has moods, and opinions, but they are non-verbal. His big thing is that he can always tell when Charlie Brown has anything to eat, especially ice cream or candy.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the first year, Charlie Brown gets a little older, and a new cast member is added: Violet, a pretty girl of Charlie Brown\u2019s own age, with two straight pigtails in back (though she\u2019s usually drawn in profile, so you can only see one). One gathers that she was added to give Charlie Brown a love interest of his own. Violet, interestingly, is the first girl to hold a football for Charlie Brown; and though she takes it away at the last minute, it doesn\u2019t appear to be due to malice. Charlie Brown also shows up playing Beethoven (badly) on a violin during this period.<\/p>\n

The next kid to arrive is Schroeder, the new baby in the neighborhood, and for the first month or so a baby is all he is\u2014and then the piano shows up, and he takes off with Beethoven. By the end of the book he\u2019s walking and talking and playing baseball with Charlie Brown\u2014who at this point is always shown as the catcher, never the pitcher\u2014though he\u2019s definitely still younger than Charlie Brown.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Schroeder makes the transformation from toddler to little boy and Charlie Brown\u2019s frequent companion, Lucy shows up. As with Schroeder, she starts out more or less as a toddler, and though she has an independent streak she\u2019s initially relatively guileless. Toward the end of the book, she does indeed hold the football for Charlie Brown in a Sunday strip in which he twice fails to kick the ball, and in neither case does she pull the ball away. The first time she\u2019s afraid that he\u2019ll kick her, and so she lets go of the ball so that it flops over just as he\u2019s about to kick it. The second time Charlie Brown warns her to hold it absolutely still, and she holds it so tightly that he can\u2019t kick it out of her grip. In neither case is she being mean; she\u2019s trying her best, in fact.<\/p>\n

After Lucy appears, Violet\u2019s hairstyle begins to change, possibly because she and Lucy look too much alike. Over the course of several months it goes back and forth between her signature pigtails hanging straight down in back and a single proto-bun on the back of her head.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about this time, or maybe a few months earlier, that Snoopy shows signs of becoming a Dog of Parts. Charlie Brown comments that everyone in town is getting a TV, and gives as evidence Snoopy\u2019s doghouse, which has a TV aerial on top. (If I\u2019m not mistaken, this marks the first time Snoopy\u2019s doghouse appears in the strip.) A month or so later, angry at being left all alone by the kids at the end of the day of a long day of play, Snoopy stalks off to his dog house. If they don\u2019t want to play anymore, that fine. He doesn\u2019t need them. He can spend the evening watching TV.<\/p>\n

And then, just at the end of the book, Linus makes his first appearances as Lucy\u2019s baby brother.<\/p>\n

As 1952 comes to a close, none of the characters yet look quite as we will know them for the better part of the strip\u2019s life. Charlie Brown\u2019s head is still noticeably oval when seen full-face. Snoopy hasn\u2019t yet begun to walk on his hindlegs or sleep on top of his dog house\u2014it\u2019s not even completely clear yet that he\u2019s Charlie Brown\u2019s dog. Violet is clearly evolving toward her final form, but hasn\u2019t gotten there yet. Schroeder is already a big Beethoven fan, but Lucy has not yet fallen in love with him. Lucy, who is still noticeably younger than Charlie Brown, has not yet opened her psychiatrist\u2019s booth. Linus has not yet acquired his security blanket, nor can he talk. Charlie Brown plays baseball, but has not yet begun to pitch.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s good stuff in this first volume, but clearly, the best is yet to come.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This review was first posted in May of 2004. The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952 (Vol. 1) (The Complete Peanuts), by Charles M. Schulz, is the first of a series of books to be published over the next twelve years, containing the complete run of Peanuts cartoons from October of 1952 until Schulz\u2019s retirement, a span of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1131,"featured_media":1664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,28],"tags":[332,331],"class_list":["post-1661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blasts-from-the-past","category-book-reviews","tag-charles-schulz","tag-peanuts"],"yoast_head":"\nReview: The Complete Peanuts, 1950 to 1952<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This review was first posted in May of 2004. The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952 (Vol. 1) (The Complete Peanuts), by Charles M. 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