Peanuts by Charles Schulz for August 13, 2014

Clinical depression seldom does, Charlie. It’s real, though.

The “nobody likes me” thing was never really true in this strip – Linus was always friendly with him, and the kids wouldn’t play baseball with him if they didn’t like him at least a little bit. The only overtly hostile character (towards Charlie) was Lucy, who Schulz biographers tend to believe symbolized his first wife.

Charlie Brown is the glue—-none of these characters would have anything to do with each other, for obvious reasons, if Charlie Brown wasn’t there as the leader-type. (Whatever they may say about him.)#Some of his associates do disappear. Remember Shermy? At one point in the early 1960s, he made some remark about how Charlie Brown had some neurotic need to lose…and it may be Charlie Brown (and maybe Charles Schulz) resented the truth in it, ’cause around that time we started seeing less and less of Shermy in the strip…

Don’t worry Chuck, I has been working in that for the last two years.

Well, are you a friend of Charlie Brown or not?

I like you Charlie Brown!

Lucy was “complex” with everyone, but actually did like Charlie Brown. Patty and Violet, on the other hand, were the snobs in the comic, and didn’t really like anyone, but especially enjoyed harassing Charlie Brown. I was glad to see them slowly written out of the strip.

I posted late yesterday, but had a trivia question, in case anyone missed it: “Who is the only adult’s face that we saw in the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip?”

The answer is just below, if you want to think about it first.

Am I missing anyone here? Did Schulz ever depict another adult face besides the one that was a sculpted bust that rested on Schroeder’s piano? I also remember he had a whole cabinet full of spares. Lucy once shattered one with a baseball bat.

The answer was “Beethoven.”

Shermy was cool. I was sad when he faded away.

Learn to quit when you’re behind, Chuck

It makes perfect sense. But not to the author, obviously.

Patty and Violet both started out liking Charlie Brown (even plotting nefariously to marry up with him someday), but that was very very early in the strip. Before too long, Charlie Brown started to develop into his classic self, but in earlier strips Charlie Brown was a Calvin type of wiseguy, and Calvin was based partly on those early versions of Charlie Brown.

Don’t worry if nobody likes you, CB. You still have a higher approval rating than Congress.

WE like you, Charlie Brown!

No actually, We love you!

Chin up.

xxx

According to Tom Smothers of the Smothers Brothers, Mom always like Dick Smothers best!

@Snoopy_FanThank you very much for taking a little time out of your probably very busy day to explain to this dumb Peanuts reader about Pig-Pen and Rerun. LOL. Thank you to summerdog as well!

My week is so-so. I hope your week is better.

I miss your comments.

Oh by the way, What do you think of the new avatar? Hope your computer screen has no cracks. Haha.

xxx