Comments on: The Day Charlie Brown Changed

The Day Charlie Brown Changed

COD — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:20:45 -0800

Pearls Before Swine Author Stephen Pastis believes the Peanuts strip published on February 1, 1954 was a turning point in the Charlie Brown series.

"When Charlie Brown starts out (from 1950 through 1953), he is a bit of a smart-aleck. More like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. He often provokes (particularly Schroeder), and likes to get the better of others. This particular strip changes that. For the first time, you see how sad and rather lonely Charlie Brown is, and moreover, how resigned he is to it. It's certainly not the same kid who a couple days prior (1/29/54) gets the better of the two girls who are making fun of him and is smiling in the last panel. Note: This is repost as the original post was deleted when the Shulz Museum site died shortly after the posting here on the Blue.

By: pmv

pmv — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:28:07 -0800

Interesting just how *bad* the "pre-pathos" Charlie Brown strips are. Schulz got a syndication gig for drawing a shit head child, and we're just lucky that four years into it he decided it'd be more interesting if it he was a sensitive and depressed child?

By: notyou

notyou — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:30:00 -0800

Mickey Mouse softened as he aged, too. He was a real prick in "Plane Crazy," for example. Bugs Bunny was always a smart ass, but he was vicious prankster in some of those early ones. I think Bart Simpson matured, too. Maybe there's a general rule here?

By: RobotVoodooPower

RobotVoodooPower — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:31:02 -0800

Isn't he just sad because his model train set is tiny compared to his friend's? Cue sad trombone?

By: Philosopher Dirtbike

Philosopher Dirtbike — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:31:25 -0800

Maybe there's a general rule here? Tell that to Marmaduke.

By: fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit

fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:36:09 -0800

I vaguely recall that one of Charlie Brown's early catchphrases was "I get my laughs!" Now I wonder if that kid would have been able to kick the football.

By: shakespeherian

shakespeherian — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:37:37 -0800

Interesting just how *bad* the "pre-pathos" Charlie Brown strips are. Disagree!

By: COD

COD — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:38:22 -0800

Now I wonder if that kid would have been able to kick the football. Lucy still would have pulled the football, but on the 3rd or 4th try that CB would have just kicked her instead.

By: cortex

cortex — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:44:17 -0800

Tell that to Marmaduke. You can hardly expect an ageless elder god-beast to show character development in his millionth year of earthly reign. No, it's just the same routine of terrorizing the humans and devouring those who tread too close for ol' Marm.

By: Rory Marinich

Rory Marinich — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:44:27 -0800

Interesting just how *bad* the "pre-pathos" Charlie Brown strips are. I own the collection of the first two years of Peanuts, and it's impressive just how scathing and bitter a comic it was right from the start. It's not a comic you can get a lot out of in four panels, but take in a bunch of strips at once and it's pretty terrific.

By: shakespeherian

shakespeherian — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:46:25 -0800

Seriously just look at the very first strip.

By: notyou

notyou — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:55:30 -0800

Shame. That "Peanuts, by Charles Bukowski" thing has apparently fallen off the web.

By: twoleftfeet

twoleftfeet — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:55:41 -0800

It reminds me of the time that Lucy told Ricky "I want to be in the show." And Ricky, as usual, says "no, Lucy, you can't be in the show." But Lucy sneaks onstage, and does a performance anyway. And it's terrible. Except eventually there was that one show, where Lucy sneaks into the show and knocks it out of the park. Ricky looks at her in a new way, and the show was never the same since. Coincidentally, this explains the revolution in Cuba.

By: Gygesringtone

Gygesringtone — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:58:07 -0800

I actually prefer the early strips, but a mix of Charlie Brown as jerk and Charlie Brown as sad little boy would have been perfect. Also, man does Schulz capture the essence of beagleness.

By: qxntpqbbbqxl

qxntpqbbbqxl — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:58:18 -0800

I think Bart Simpson matured, too. Some of the characters on the Simpsons have not only matured, they have become somewhat schizophrenic as the writing quality declines and their personalities flip-flop from one scene to another. See zombie simpsons: how the best show ever became the broadcasting undead (previously) for a gruesome post-mortem.

By: cazoo

cazoo — Sat, 04 May 2013 08:59:22 -0800

This explains why Snoopy is such an ungrateful dog. Never did like him and now it all makes sense, Charlie Brown was a real jerk to him.

By: zamboni

zamboni — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:00:41 -0800

It's certainly not the same kid who a couple days prior (1/29/54) gets the better of the two girls who are making fun of him and is smiling in the last panel. It strikes me that it'd fit perfectly if the last panel was CB gazing wistfully.

By: COD

COD — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:01:40 -0800

As the owner of two beagles I only wish my dogs were half as smart as Snoopy.

By: elizardbits

elizardbits — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:03:21 -0800

Yes, but you might end up with a beagle like Maymo instead.

By: EmpressCallipygos

EmpressCallipygos — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:16:05 -0800

The pathos is actually why I liked Charlie Brown so much as a kid. All the other comics had kids who did cute and adorable things or witty things or clever things, and somehow they always got away with it or had a clever comeback or succeeded in the end. Those kids came out on top. And life, in these comics, was always a barrel of laughs. But even when I was a kid, I knew that was bullshit - because sometime life sucked. Sometimes you did get impossible book reports and you couldn't skate and your kite kept getting caught in that damn tree and you made jokes that no one got and so they looked at you like you were stupid and you struck out and the rest of your team blamed you and god dammit that sucked. And sometimes, when you're a kid, when you're good and frustrated about some things, you don't want people who are relentlessly telling you to snap out of it and cheer up - you want someone to validate your rant. And so Charlie Brown became like that guy down at the end of the bar who, when you are pouring out your shit-luck story, will look up from his own drink, and nod and pass you the peanuts and say "you got that right, mac." And that's exactly what I needed. But once it won me over it taught me to find humor in those exact shit situations. I started using Peanuts for my cris du couer when I was as young as seven - I remember once getting really frustrated trying to rollerskate, and I finally got fed up - and remembering something Lucy had done in a similar moment of frustration, I stomped inside, hurled my skates inside a closet and shouted, "YOU CAN LIE IN THERE AND ROT FOR ALL I CARE!" at the top of my little-kid voice. I was surprised by my father, who'd seen the whole thing, and burst out laughing - I was a little too mad to laugh with him right away, but a few minutes later I pictured what I'd just done and had to admit that yeah, it was funny. And that got me thinking that the bad things that happened to Charlie Brown were funny too, sometimes, because they were just so comically over-the-top funny - and maybe if they were funny for him, maybe the bad things that happened to me could be something I could see if they were funny too. And often - they were. But Schulz never forgot that sometimes they were just frustrating and sad and you weren't always ready to laugh just yet - laugh when you can, sure, but in the meantime Charlie Brown will still keep you company when you're pissed.

By: jason_steakums

jason_steakums — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:19:23 -0800

God, I love the art style on the early Peanuts. The style it evolved into is iconic and has a ton of charm, but when I was a kid and found an old paperback of the early strips at my grandma's house, it blew me away.

By: twoleftfeet

twoleftfeet — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:20:27 -0800

Who would win in a fight, Snoopy or Scooby-Doo? I think that Snoopy has the advantage in cunning and verbal skills, but Scooby-Doo is affable and considerably larger. As the days go on and I grow older, I find myself concerned with increasingly minute details. Recently I worried about the outcome of a matchup between cartoon dogs. I think my mind is slipping. I'm losing it. So preoccupied with cartoon dogs. It's not right. And I totally forgot about Underdog, who could have kicked both their asses.

By: jason_steakums

jason_steakums — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:23:54 -0800

As the days go on and I grow older, I find myself concerned with increasingly minute details. Recently I worried about the outcome of a matchup between cartoon dogs. I think my mind is slipping. I'm losing it. So preoccupied with cartoon dogs. It's not right. And I totally forgot about Underdog, who could have kicked both their asses. Seeing you in the throes of internal crisis, Muttley laughs a quiet, wheezy laugh.

By: thelonius

thelonius — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:24:43 -0800

The biggest change over time was probably the shift to Snoopy as the central character of the strip. I read this as a reflection of the accelerating deterioration of Charlie Brown's psyche. His worsening depression and indecision,the failure of his efforts to obtain psychological help, and his alienation from the adults in his life become too much for him to cope with, and he retreats into a bizarre fantasy world concerning the adventures of his dog.

By: Artw

Artw — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:25:39 -0800

Mickey Mouse softened as he aged, too. He was a real prick in "Plane Crazy," for example. Mickey Mouse has a personality?

By: kenko

kenko — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:26:00 -0800

For the first time, you see how sad and rather lonely Charlie Brown is, and moreover, how resigned he is to it. The only Peanuts collection I have is the first one, 1950–1952. Having prior to getting it only read the strips that were published in my lifetime, I found them quite surprising. In particular, I was surprised at how sad and rather lonely Charlie Brown is, and moreover, how resigned he is to it. Not in all the strips. But it's there. E.g., the one where Charlie Brown tries to cut down a sapling after another character marvels at how it will later grow into a splendid tree. Or the one where he's approached for a game of marbles: "That would be fine ... if I could win ... but I'd probably lose ... then I'd get depressed ... Then I'd be real grumpy, and wouldn't want to talk to anyone, and I'd hate myself ... Thanks, anyway."

By: jason_steakums

jason_steakums — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:30:34 -0800

Yeah, it was like this from the beginning, his "turning point" comes pretty late.

By: Sphinx

Sphinx — Sat, 04 May 2013 09:58:01 -0800

Some of my earliest memories are coming across old Peanuts paperback compilations at a friend's house and wondering why he always put "Snoopy in a helmet army stuff" on my birthday. It took me a couple years to finally figure it out.

By: justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow

justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow — Sat, 04 May 2013 10:01:40 -0800

Who would win in a fight, Snoopy or Scooby-Doo? Snoopy has WWI combat experience, is not a coward and isn't baked out of his gourd. No contest.

By: item

item — Sat, 04 May 2013 10:05:48 -0800

This post has inspired me to download copies of Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown and Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown. I'd grab Snoopy Come Home too, but I'm not really in the mood to be depressed for the next several days.

By: twoleftfeet

twoleftfeet — Sat, 04 May 2013 10:16:56 -0800

The name Peanuts derives from peanut gallery (cite), which in turn derives from the tendency of people in the cheapest seats to throw peanuts (cite). The peanut was probably first domesticated and cultivated in the valleys of Paraguay (cite). The word Paraguay is thought to come from Guaraní para, "of many varieties", and gua, "riverine" (cite). "I'm Going Down to the River" was recorded by Ray Charles (cite). Ray Charles was influenced by Charles Brown (cite). So you can kind of see how a comic about Charlie Brown is called Peanuts.

By: hydrophonic

hydrophonic — Sat, 04 May 2013 10:20:09 -0800

When I was a kid, I read an interview with Charles Schulz in which he revealed that Charlie Brown was his least favorite character, because his big round head was difficult to draw without smudging. This, of course, is Charlie Brown in a nutshell. Even your creator hates you.

By: Bunny Ultramod

Bunny Ultramod — Sat, 04 May 2013 10:49:25 -0800

This explains why Snoopy is such an ungrateful dog. Never did like him and now it all makes sense, Charlie Brown was a real jerk to him. It took quite a while before Sparky Schulz settled on Snoopy as being Charlie Brown's dog; he's sort of a neighborhood dog, often seen with Shermy and Patty in the early strips. He just became Charlie Brown's dog by default, mostly, it seems, because Snoopy's doghouse in on the Brown property and because Charlie has taken responsibility for feeding him. Even still, Snoopy is unusually independent for a dog, appearing more often in strips without Charley Brown than with, and often just showing up and neighbor's houses, so he never really lost the neighborhood dog quality.

By: TedW

TedW — Sat, 04 May 2013 10:49:43 -0800

Snoopy has WWI combat experience... A couple of strafing runs in the Sopwith Camel would take care of all those meddling kids.

By: flug

flug — Sat, 04 May 2013 11:17:28 -0800

That "Peanuts, by Charles Bukowski" thing has apparently fallen off the web. Internet Archive Wayback Machine to the rescue . . .

By: JHarris

JHarris — Sat, 04 May 2013 11:20:47 -0800

When I was a kid, I read an interview with Charles Schulz in which he revealed that Charlie Brown was his least favorite character, because his big round head was difficult to draw without smudging. He didn't dislike Charlie Brown; in fact, I think Schulz identified with him a great deal. But he was hard to draw. (Don't kid yourself: Peanuts actually took a lot of technical skill to produce.) I need to revive Roasted Peanuts eventually, but between everything else right now, and the pizza mines on top of that, it's hard to find the time.

By: zscore

zscore — Sat, 04 May 2013 11:32:50 -0800

Early Charlie Brown is a lot like Calvin!

By: benito.strauss

benito.strauss — Sat, 04 May 2013 11:56:10 -0800

Thanks for that Simpsons link, qxntpqbbbqxl. I've been looking for a Simpsons nerd to detail the decline for me and that looks like just what I wanted.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Sat, 04 May 2013 12:00:04 -0800

Schulz got a syndication gig for drawing a shit head child, and we're just lucky that four years into it he decided it'd be more interesting if it he was a sensitive and depressed child? Or, he simply started writing Charlie Brown from what he knew of his own personal life experience.

By: Melismata

Melismata — Sat, 04 May 2013 12:41:10 -0800

In one of those early strips, Charlie Brown DID kick the football. Either Violet or Shermy held it, I forget which. (Then, a little later, Violet held the ball but was afraid that CB was going to kick her hand, so she pulled it away, thus starting a tradition.)

By: kristi

kristi — Sat, 04 May 2013 12:45:16 -0800

A friend of mine who thought Peanuts had always been rather fluffy and insipid was surprised by the tone of this 1958 Sunday strip.

By: inigo2

inigo2 — Sat, 04 May 2013 12:47:04 -0800

Or the one where he's approached for a game of marbles: "That would be fine ... if I could win ... but I'd probably lose ... then I'd get depressed ... Then I'd be real grumpy, and wouldn't want to talk to anyone, and I'd hate myself ... Thanks, anyway." Any chance you remember which strip this was (/ have a link to it) ?

By: Dr. Zira

Dr. Zira — Sat, 04 May 2013 13:45:08 -0800

I'm not sure "You're Being A Dick, Charlie Brown" would have done well as a holiday special.

By: Slack-a-gogo

Slack-a-gogo — Sat, 04 May 2013 14:15:17 -0800

Part of me misses the young incocent days when I'd pick up a book of Charlie Brown cartoons and laugh out loud. I still love revisiting the strips and am still taken by their charm, but they don't make me laugh anymore.

By: Ad hominem

Ad hominem — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:18:01 -0800

The animated tv show in which Charlie come to New York for a spelling bea has one of the saddest moments on tv, even sadder than when Hawkeye went nuts and kept having nightmares about killing babies.Charlie sat alone in his shitty hotel room and orders for dinner a bowl of dry cereal and a glass of milk then went to bed early. If your life is that bleak when you are a kid, your are going to have a bad time.

By: Decani

Decani — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:45:26 -0800

Do any of you youngsters realise that Garfield was actually pretty funny in the early years? No, really!

By: kristi

kristi — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:56:33 -0800

kenko: Or the one where he's approached for a game of marbles: "That would be fine ... if I could win ... but I'd probably lose ... then I'd get depressed ... Then I'd be real grumpy, and wouldn't want to talk to anyone, and I'd hate myself ... Thanks, anyway." inigo2: Any chance you remember which strip this was (/ have a link to it) ? One of the great things about the recent hardback collections is the index to strips in the back. I searched the index for "marbles" in the first three sets/six volumes (the only ones I have), and I couldn't find the marbles strip kenko mentioned. (I also paged through that first volume and didn't see it.) Here are a few of the better marbles-related strips I did come across: playing for money, 6/12/1952 dumb luck, 6/29/52 Lucy is frustrated, 1/24/54 let Lucy play, 3/20/55 teaching Lucy to play, 4/24/55 Lucy getting discouraged, 5/6/56 It's interesting to see Lucy treated as so much younger - in these early strips, she's clearly younger than Charlie Brown. In later strips, they always seem about the same age to me. And a few others: Charlie Brown, left out and lonely, 5/7/51 Mad money, 7/21/51 (reminded me of the discussion of "mad money" in this thread on flapper slang Lucy and the football - Lucy's afraid he'll kick her hand, 11/14/51 a year later: Lucy doesn't pull the ball away, 11/16/52 Also, several of the very early strips have Charlie Brown playing the violin and talking about Beethoven (before the Schroeder/Beethoven link was so clearly established).

By: Renoroc

Renoroc — Sat, 04 May 2013 17:21:23 -0800

If Charlie Brown were a lesser man, he would have kicked the shit out of Lucy a long time ago; he just took it and resigned himself to his shit fate. MY HERO.

By: Melismata

Melismata — Sat, 04 May 2013 18:04:28 -0800

kristi, in your first link that is Violet, not Lucy.

By: oneswellfoop

oneswellfoop — Sat, 04 May 2013 19:08:26 -0800

Most comic strips evolved after they first hit the newspapers, in visual style AND personality ... it's almost inevitable (and you can see it for many of the comics on GoComics - the calendar navigation is non-intutitive; keep clicking on the year and you can go back a decade at a time). Here's the earliest available Pearls Before Swine from 2002. Note Pig does a punchline you'd usually expect from Rat. Apparently Patsis evolved his characters too... The frequently referenced first Garfield. (I'm not going to say it was funnier early on; just that the tropes that became cliches were new and fresh at first. "Show me a good mouser and I'll show you a cat with bad breath.") The beginnings of Dilbert (he was even uglier, and not at the office, just losing arguments with his dog) The oldest Opus-less Bloom County (1980) Gocomics also reruns Berke Breathed's previous "Academia Waltz". First rerun strip. The first Get Fuzzy from 1999. Bucky Katt hasn't changed, but Rob has. Even Calvin and Hobbes evolved the character designs in its first months (and Watterson's art just kept getting more elaborate). Ziggy remains pretty much the same as in 1971. Luann (1985). Of course, in addition to the artist's style evolving, the characters have grown slow-motion-comics-style about 5 years in 28. (By comparison, some older strips tried having their characters age in real time... Blondie started as a young flapper courted by bachelor Dagwood but the strip suddenly froze everything when their children became teenagers. But Gasoline Alley persists to this day after 95 years, with original protagonist Walt Wallet now over 110 years old.) But that's a whole other thing. It's surprising that some long-running comics sold to the syndicates and gained a following BEFORE they ever got good (of course, others NEVER got GOOD). But more recently, with so fewer new comics, they're being required to be introduced in a much more finalized form... ... like Lio (2006). and Cul De Sac (2007 and died too soon). (Sadly, the Creators Syndicate offerings on GoComics only go back to 2002, even if the strips go back to the 50s, and King Features, with some comics still going after 80 years, has everything behind a paywall with only a year of archives) And then there are Webcomics, which so often would be started by somebody with a story or jokes to tell who would THEN learn how to draw. The most obvious example is Questionable Content: First, Latest. But even xkcd's first comic looked different...

By: JHarris

JHarris — Sat, 04 May 2013 19:24:59 -0800

Do any of you youngsters realise that Garfield was actually pretty funny in the early years? No, really! I did. Up until about #20 I collected all the compilations. That was about where I lost interest. I am still heartbroken that Cul De Sac has closed up shop. It was seriously the best thing on the page, and if it had kept up it would have gone on to rival Calvin and Hobbes.

By: Decani

Decani — Sat, 04 May 2013 20:58:56 -0800

I think it took a while for Garfield to hit its stride. That happened somewhere around the time Davis started drawing him more the way we know and less like the pinhead fatty of the very first strips. But for a while there it was all about Garfield's mean streak and less "I hate Mondays Garfield we love you where's Pookie?" I think Davis must have taken an arrow to the brain somewhere around the mid-eighties.

By: Curious Artificer

Curious Artificer — Sat, 04 May 2013 21:06:07 -0800

I think that with both Peanuts and Garfield the thing is that there's a sweet spot between the time you give your cartoon animals actual thought balloons and the time you put them on two legs. It's magic, but only for a (indeterminitely) short time.

By: kenko

kenko — Sat, 04 May 2013 23:28:41 -0800

One of the great things about the recent hardback collections is the index to strips in the back. I searched the index for "marbles" in the first three sets/six volumes (the only ones I have), and I couldn't find the marbles strip kenko mentioned. (I also paged through that first volume and didn't see it.) It's on page 228 of the 1950–1952 Complete Peanuts. Weirdly, it's not listed in the index under "marbles"! Heads otta roll!

By: krinklyfig

krinklyfig — Sun, 05 May 2013 01:48:16 -0800

oneswellfoop: "The frequently referenced first Garfield. (I'm not going to say it was funnier early on; just that the tropes that became cliches were new and fresh at first." What was great about early Garfield was that he was misanthropic and ugly. He was a little like Walter Matthau in his later roles. When Jon Davis turned him into a cute big-eyed cartoon to appeal to little kids and sell merchandise it flattened out what little depth was there. Hard to say he sold out since he always planned on it, but the first book is still a classic. Anything beyond that doesn't hold up, except maybe the reworked strips. I always loved Peanuts and must have read through every strip dozens of times. I practiced drawing Snoopy in grade school over and over... Not sure if that strip were the turning point. It gradually evolved into more existential themes, but from the start it was cynical compared to the conventional portrayal of children as innocent.

By: TheSecretDecoderRing

TheSecretDecoderRing — Sun, 05 May 2013 02:21:25 -0800

The name Peanuts derives from peanut gallery (cite) And as noted on the Wikipedia page, Schulz hated the name. It's funny how the syndicate made him change the original name, Li'l Folks, because of its similarity to Li'l Abner. Rappers obviously don't share such concerns. Also... the only time I can recall a character addressing Charlie Brown as just "Charlie" is in the Christmas special, when Lucy talks about big Eastern syndicates. No idea if it happened in the strip.

By: dry white toast

dry white toast — Sun, 05 May 2013 07:07:39 -0800

See, I always thought Charlie Brown and Snoopy had, at base, an affectionate relationship, based on shared misanthropy. I feel like they understand each other. The difference is Snoopy is able to escape into his imagination.

By: Melismata

Melismata — Sun, 05 May 2013 13:41:56 -0800

Also... the only time I can recall a character addressing Charlie Brown as just "Charlie" is in the Christmas special, when Lucy talks about big Eastern syndicates. No idea if it happened in the strip. There was one strip, in the early days, where Charlie lectures Snoopy about how he's the master, Snoopy is only the dog, and that he is in charge. Then, all of a sudden, from offstage: "Charlie! Charlie Brown!" CB then walks away sheepishly, saying, "oh, excuse me, I think that's my mother calling." One of the very rare instances in the strip where an adult has dialog. Yes, I do own the complete strips to date, why do you ask? :)

By: kristi

kristi — Sun, 05 May 2013 14:12:57 -0800

melismata: "kristi, in your first link that is Violet, not Lucy." Oops! Oh ... actually, I think it's Patty. (Not Peppermint Patty, just plain blond Patty.) Checking the index for characters' names is pretty great, too - under Patty (which I checked to make sure I had the name right, because I can honestly never remember her name) we have the subheadings: * chasing Charlie Brown in anger * chased by Charlie Brown in anger * checkered dress, first appearance of * romantic feelings toward Charlie Brown * romantic feelings toward Shermy * threats toward boys * violence toward boys Goodness. kenko, on the marbles "I'd probably lose" strip: "It's on page 228 of the 1950–1952 Complete Peanuts. Weirdly, it's not listed in the index under "marbles"! Heads otta roll!" Aha! Excellent! Thanks! So, inigo2 (and anyone who's interested): here's the marbles "thanks anyway" strip, courtesy of kenko.

By: Chrysostom

Chrysostom — Sun, 05 May 2013 23:17:29 -0800

thelonius: "His worsening depression and indecision,the failure of his efforts to obtain psychological help, and his alienation from the adults in his life become too much for him to cope with, and he retreats into a bizarre fantasy world concerning the adventures of his dog." This kind of reminded of Garfield's hallucinations when he was starving to death.

By: mnfn

mnfn — Mon, 06 May 2013 06:28:04 -0800

Shame. That "Peanuts, by Charles Bukowski" thing has apparently fallen off the web. I was intrigued by your post and found that it's still available via the wayback machine here.

By: Melismata

Melismata — Mon, 06 May 2013 11:06:12 -0800

Ah, here's the early strip where he's called Charlie. kristi: It's definitely Violet, not Patty or Lucy. Violet was the one who had braids in the beginning, as shown in her first appearance here.

By: inigo2

inigo2 — Tue, 07 May 2013 16:04:30 -0800

So, inigo2 (and anyone who's interested): here's the marbles "thanks anyway" strip, courtesy of kenko. Thanks! Was having trouble finding it online. (On the other hand, actually seeing it has made me depressed. Man.....)