Peanuts Begins by Charles Schulz for February 17, 2015

“…and you’re the only one who knows.” ~Billy Joel

I thought maybe they were watching a bug crawl by. We used to do that as kids.

I’d give anything to know what CB told Shermy…

They just feel sad?

I sometimes wonder how this strip survived one year, let alone several decades.

The precursor to what i call “the talking wall”.

@ScyphiI think a majority of Peanuts fans would agree that it peaked in the 60’s (or stretching into the early 70’s). It had excellent strips in all decades, though. Spoiler alert from the June 20th, 1993 Sunday strip: An off-panel voice is calling to Snoopy, “Here, boy!” Snoopy thinks “Boy?” as he rolls his eyes. The next few panels have the off-panel voice telling Snoopy to fetch a ball, a frisbee, and a stick (and praising Snoopy for fetching them). The final panel has Linus, Charlie Brown, and a dog-tired Snoopy leaning with their backs against a large tree trunk. Linus asks Charlie Brown: “What did you give your father for Father’s Day?”Charlie Brown replies: “I let him play with my dog.” For some odd reason this episode really appeals to me!

Pogo was excellent. I have a few Pogo books. Beautifully drawn, and the dialogue was wonderful, with all the puns and word play. Pogo was the opposite of Peanuts. Peanuts was minimalist and lovely. Pogo was convoluted and complicated and gorgeous. :-)

Pogo went on till Walk Kelly died in 1974.

This strip demonstrates Shulz’s mid-western roots and sensibilities (and sense of humour); VERY common mid-western “guy talk”.