The Complete Peanuts, Vol. 2: 1953-1954 by Charles M. Schulz

The Complete Peanuts, Vol. 2: 1953-1954 Reviews

• 
  Alejandro

  Good ol’ Charlie Brown is back!
  
  
  STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS
  
  This is the second volume of the Complete Peanuts, created by Charles M. Schulz, starting in 1953 and reaching until 1954.
  
  While there aren’t almost any adult in scene, a curious thing is that you can’t understand what they say, instead of the usual “Blah, blah, blah” in more modern strips, where you have to figure it out what they’re saying due what the kids replied about.
  
  And with Snoopy, from time to time, you still are able to read his thoughts and even there a strip where it’s implied that he can “talks”. Also, it’s still not clear of whom Snoopy is, since there is a strip where Paty and Shermy are painting Snoopy’s house and Charlie Brown pass by to see as if he wasn’t Snoopy’s owner at all.
  
  Charlie Brown is in a transition status, where he’s quite cynical and even doing pranks to his friends, along with beginning to go into “adorable looser” mode, where he can’t accomplish to succeed sometimes.
  
  And Shermy is still around, since Linus is still a baby (as I mentioned in the previous review, that it’s quite odd that Linus eventually, I guess in a “magically” way, he’ll become of the same age than Charlie Brown).
  
  
  ENTER: PIG-PEN & …
  
  In this second volume is introduced the distinctly famous Pig-Pen, which is the kid who is always dirty with a cloud of dust all around him.
  
  It’s not so rare that in the recent “The Peanuts” CGI movie, they made Patty (don’t get confused with Peppermint Patty) has a romantic interest on Pig-Pen, since she was the first one to meet him, in his introductory strip.
  
  Also, there is the introduction of an odd character named “Charlotte Braun” who is not related to good ol’ Charlie Brown, but it’s obvious that she was intended to be like a “female counterpart” to Charlie Brown, but since I never watch her in any TV special or even the CGI movie, I guess that she didn’t remain long in the comic strip. I’ll know for sure when I’d been reading the next volume.
  
  
  LUCY DISCREETLY GROWIN’ UP
  
  Lucy is still a kindergarten girl, visible shorter than the other kids, and along the volume, while she’s still quite childish in her comments, you will notice about finals strips that she’s already of the same height than the other kids, with more maturish remarks and attitude.
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Dan Schwent

  The Complete Peanuts, Vol. 2: 1953-1954 collects the Peanuts strips from 1953-1954.
  
  On the heels of finishing the first volume, I had to restrain myself from going out and buying more. Fortunately, I got the second volume in a slipcase with the first.
  
  The strip and Shulz's art evolve quite a bit in this volume. The strip looks brighter and the characters look more familiar. Lucy goes from being a toddler herself to having a baby brother named Linus. Pig-Pen and Charlotte Braun are introduced and Shermie, Violet, and Patty continue heading for the door.
  
  Charlie Brown still has some life to him and isn't the doormat he'd be for the last 30 years of his life. I didn't really understand why Violet got phased out in favor of Lucy until I read this volume. Lucy is a pain in the ass but still likes Charlie Brown on some level. Violet is just a stone cold bitch.
  
  This volume isn't quite as gritty as the previous volume but still has a lot more grit than the MetLife Presents Charlie Brown we all grew up with. So when does Snoopy officially become Charlie Brown's dog? He seems not to belong to any of the gang so far in his life, although there might be a long life of Snoopys that die and get replaced throughout the life of the strip.
  
  The evolution of the Peanuts gang continues in The Complete Charlie Brown Volume 2. They aren't hawking insurance policies yet! Four out of five stars.
• 
  Josiah

  With twenty-five volumes to this series, each featuring more than three hundred pages of Peanuts comic strips, there's no better way to immerse yourself in the world of Charlie Brown, Shermy, Patty, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, and Violet. Spanning all of 1953 and '54, the characters begin to clarify in this second volume, and we get a feel for which running gags will endure. We find a classic strip right away, January 7 of '53 (page three), about Lucy's expulsion from nursery school. That's followed January 14 (page six) by another classic, Charlie Brown grousing to Violet that he suspects she doesn't like him at all. January 15 (page seven) we're reintroduced to Charlie Brown's talent for crafting bizarre snowmen, and January 27 (page twelve) is a hilarious mixup between Schroeder and Lucy at his toy piano; he uses music vocabulary she mistakes for an out-of-the-blue term of endearment. January 30 (page thirteen), Lucy is carrying a small Charlie Brown doll. Charlie Brown is pleased...until he sees what she does with it. February 1 (page fourteen) is a Sunday of subtle Peanuts philosophy, with Lucy and Patty visiting the dime store. Patty can see over the counter to the toys, dolls, and trinkets, but Lucy isn't tall enough to look at anything more than the paneling and carpentry of the counter fronts. However enthusiastic a friend may be about an interesting subject, sometimes we have growing to do before we're able to match their comprehension and appreciation.
  
  February 5 (page sixteen) Schroeder tells Charlie Brown he practices piano ten hours a day and can play a wide variety of classical pieces. When Charlie Brown responds that he saw a man on T.V. play piano with his nose, Schroeder wonders if a disciplined prodigy like himself will ever get his due. It's hard to earn acclaim in a world that's drawn to the sensational. February 8 (page seventeen) is a laugh-out-loud Sunday: as Lucy and Snoopy share a box of cookies, Lucy leaves the box behind to answer the doorbell, but "counts" the cookies to safeguard against Snoopy stealing. Insulted, Snoopy gobbles a few; with her eccentric counting, Lucy will never know...will she? The build-up and punchline are very funny. February 9 (page eighteen) Charlie Brown eats "spite" candy on the other side of a door closed against Snoopy. But how tasty are sweets when you eat them to spite a friend? Pleasures just aren't the same when you use them against someone you care about. February 19 (page twenty-two) is a type of gag that repeats intermittently, Lucy listening to a recording on her record player (in this case, it's the Georgie Porgy nursery rhyme). Her comment after it ends is hysterically funny. February 20 is a keen observation about appetite. Charlie Brown declines when Violet offers him ice cream, but he gradually warms to the idea and ends up craving it. How disappointing to learn there was no ice cream at all; what's more, the dessert wouldn't have crossed his mind if Violet hadn't offered. When you get excited about a treat, losing out on it is a real downer. March 5 (page twenty-eight) Charlie Brown expresses sadness at a song on the record player. But when the music ends, he asks Violet to replay it; sometimes a sad song does us good, even if it brings melancholy memories to the surface.
  
  A classic Linus-and-Lucy gag marks March 8 (page twenty-nine), with Lucy mystified why her baby brother is such a bundle of nerves. The answer is obvious to anyone but Lucy. May 20 (page sixty) Lucy tells Patty how relieved she'll be when nursery school lets out for summer, though Lucy's choice of vacation activities sounds strangely similar to what she bemoans at school. It's more satisfying to learn and play because we like to than because it's mandated. May 25 (page sixty-three) is a classic joke, playing off Charlie Brown's feelings of inadequacy for an amusing insult, and June 28 (page seventy-seven) is an insightful look at children's games. When Charlie Brown and Shermy play Cowboys and Indians, they argue constantly over whether their "gunfire" hit its target. It turns out Charlie Brown has no interest in Cowboys and Indians; he enjoys verbal sparring. How similar to many who enter politics or law not because they love doing good, but want to intellectually hammer the opposition. July 7 (page eighty-one) is a theme broached repeatedly by Peanuts. When Charlie Brown sees Patty and Violet talking quietly, he assumes they're speaking negatively about him. However, we see that the conversation has nothing to do with Charlie Brown. A key aspect of humility is to not fool yourself into believing you're the center of other people's existence; it's also the only way to live in peace, not obsessing on what others think or say about you. July 20 (page eighty-seven) Charlie Brown has a blasé reaction to Schroeder telling him about the foreign piano pieces he's learned to play. "That's nice, Schroeder...I think everyone should have a hobby." How demoralizing to be a fine artist and have your labor regarded as nothing more than a casual pastime. I empathize, Schroeder.
  
  July 24 (page eighty-eight) Charlie Brown admits he's a "lonesome cowboy." It's not easy having different interests when your peers pursue the latest fads; you feel left behind by the world. October 15 (page one hundred twenty-four) Charlie Brown is stunned that Patty invites him to her party. He's dull at parties, he says, no fun at all, but he's glad she's asking. After Charlie Brown's spiel, though, maybe Patty has changed her mind. As the saying goes, “If you put a small value on yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.” December 5 (page one hundred forty-five) is a well-known strip, Snoopy licking Linus's face and Lucy restraining her brother, who wants to reciprocate. December 18 (page one hundred fifty-one) is a classic, Lucy explaining that her mother is teaching Linus to feed himself by sending him to bed without supper if he knocks his bowl off the table three times. The punchline is quintessential Charles Schulz. Peanuts is replete with sophisticated music humor, and January 2, 1954 (page one hundred fifty-seven) is a famous example. Charlie Brown's George Frederick Handel pun is not appreciated by Schroeder. Another classic sprouts up January 7 (page one hundred sixty), Charlie Brown and Patty arguing over ownership of a snowman. Patty taking her half and going home is hilarious. January 14 (page one hundred sixty-three) Violet derides Snoopy for his trick of balancing full glasses of water on both outstretched ears. She says it's a waste of time, considering all the world's problems. The criticism deflates Snoopy, but sometimes we should admire a skill because it's impressive in its own right, not based on whether it's more broadly useful. Otherwise, we miss wondrous things people can devote themselves to achieving.
  
  Another famous strip comes along January 18 (page one hundred sixty-five), Schroeder staying home from school to celebrate a birthday. Which classical musician is it this time? February 6 (page one hundred seventy-two) is good old-fashioned Peanuts comedy, Violet inquiring as to what Charlie Brown likes just so she can reject him more thoroughly. February 26 (page one hundred eighty-one) is an insight into artistic sensitivity. Like Charlie Brown, we often convince ourselves we're looking for honest opinions of our work, when in reality we want positive reactions even if they're not the whole truth. It's a candid strip for a cartoonist to create. Peanuts turns out some excellent Schroeder jokes, and March 26 (page one hundred ninety-three) is one of this book's best. The jack-in-the-box visual gag is wildly funny. April 15 (page two hundred two) is a wordplay bit featuring the title of a book Charlie Brown is reading, and April 24 (page two hundred five) is another hysterical commentary by Lucy about a record she listens to, the song "Mary Wore Her Red Dress." The punchline is sublime. May 9 (page two hundred twelve) begins a rare Sunday miniseries, lasting four consecutive Sundays. Lucy, a golf prodigy, enters the Women's State Amateur Championship and improbably is on the brink of victory...until a complication stops her. More music comedy comes our way May 20 (page two hundred seventeen), Lucy misinterpreting a word Schroeder uses about song styles on a Chopin record he purchased. July 13 (page two hundred forty) is a momentous occasion in Peanuts history: the introduction of Pig-Pen, who's as dirty on day one as any day since. Who doesn't love Pig-Pen despite (or because of) his inexorable cloud of dust?
  
  October 12 (page two hundred seventy-nine) Schroeder again runs up against the world's ignorance in relation to his talent. Schroeder knows classical music like a scholar, but it's Charlie Brown's knowledge of baseball history that engenders Violet's admiration. Will Schroeder's genius ever be recognized? October 23 (page two hundred eighty-three) Snoopy gets tired of his position in front of the T.V. being usurped, and humorously overreacts to make his point to Charlie Brown. While preparing for Halloween on October 29 (page two hundred eighty-six), Schroeder figures he'll wear a jacket over his ghost costume if it's cold out, but Patty is right: somehow it seems to diminish the effect. The visual is amusing, as is the case for the October 30 strip, when Charlie Brown's mother can only spare a washrag for his ghost costume, not a full sheet. November 3 (page two hundred eighty-eight) Charlie Brown and Lucy gaze at the night sky, and Lucy wonders why Charlie Brown never thinks about how he'd react if the moon fell on his head. It's not an imminent threat, but thinking in unusual ways expands our minds beyond arbitrary barriers we otherwise put in place. Lucy has a point when she asks, "How come you never think about things like that?" November 30 (page three hundred) Charlie Brown is surprised to meet Charlotte Braun, a kid who talks too loudly and wants it clearly known she's not related to Charlie Brown. December 9 (page three hundred four) Lucy compares the likelihood of her eventual marriage to Charlie Brown or Schroeder, and Charlie Brown rails against Schroeder for giving even more extreme odds than he himself offered Lucy. December 20 (page three hundred nine) Charlie Brown attempts to teach Linus to blow up a balloon, but the toddler somehow blows square balloons. Charlie Brown and Lucy think something is wrong with Linus for how he inflates balloons, but is there? Is it not a gift to do something that brings variety to a world awash in homogeny? That always was Linus's special knack. December 29 (page three hundred twelve) is a fresh, funny sight gag to finish this book with a flourish, a return to Charlie Brown's snowman art but with a new angle. Peanuts heads into 1955 with a bright future, already perhaps the best comic strip of its era.
  
  I love Charles Monroe Schulz and Peanuts. The subtle humor and insight, the neighborhood camaraderie among the kids and the overall upbeat feel in spite of Charlie Brown's well-earned pessimism make the strip a work of art that uniquely enhances children's literature. Peanuts brought comfort via daily newspaper for half a century, and does the same today for those who read Schulz's books. I'd rate Volume 2 of The Complete Peanuts at least two and a half stars, perhaps the full three, and I recommend it to anyone wondering what they might be missing. I take every opportunity to spend an afternoon with Charlie Brown and the gang.
• 
  Teresa

  The characters are still evolving into their famous incarnations. Charlie Brown is less of a prankster. Snoopy now “talk-thinks” at times; his facial expressions are priceless. Lucy has become a big loud presence and it’s no wonder her brother, the brilliant (though silent) baby Linus, starts to use a security blanket by volume’s end. Also near the book's end, Pig-Pen is introduced for the first time, as is a character named Charlotte Braun.
  
  I’d wondered at the quality of a very few of the strips near the end and that’s explained in a publisher’s note at the back of the book. A number of these early strips, published in only a few newspapers originally, were never saved properly or reprinted. Most newspapers archive on microfilm only and that’s useless for graphic reproduction. Consequently, finding and restoring the early strips took some time and lots of work, and are a Peanuts-lovers’ dream.
• 
  Mary Catelli

  The opening of the strip with all the comics.
  
  Continuing onward from the formation in Volume 1, Volume 2 has the characters and cast taking shape. The only new character is Pig-Pen. Who is even a corrupting influence.
  
  I think Charlie Brown has fewer smart-alec moments but I didn't count. He still has his moments; when Lucy tries demanding a drink and then complaining that he put his fingers on the ice cubes, he throws the drink over her. When he wants to quit school, he gets talked back into going -- he needs to count to nine, to ensure he has enough players for his baseball team. On the other hand, he loses a lot of checkers games, and Lucy overbears him with her silliness on occasion, such as when she insists that it's a new sun every day.
  
  It also introduces such immortal themes as the baseball game. Charlie Brown tries to fly a kite though the kite-eating tree does not appear.
• 
  Robert

  1 of 26 volumes of collected work. Staggering. Review will be appended to all volumes when I've completed them all.
• 
  Dave Schaafsma

  When I was in middle school my Mom bought me a yellow sweatshirt with Charlie Brown on it and the phrase, "I need all the friends I can get." Thanks, mom, that really helped me. Suddenly I became wildly popular, of course…. But seriously, it sort of confirmed for me my outsider, nerd status as hyper sensitive guy, never to be cool. Each and every day I read Peanuts and it was my favorite, always, offering insight and humor. I was Charlie Brown, as were a million others reading.
  
  9 Year old Harry and I finished this book of daily strips, accomplished in my birth year and a character largely unknown to Harry, of course, Schulz gone, the holiday specials fading… But you know, he is like me in many ways, reading with a headlamp late into the night, every book he can get his hands on… Stacks of them in and around his bed. He's cooler than I was, but he's sensitive and sweet and can related to Charlie Brown, I bet.
  
  Though I read Peanuts strips religiously, a daily devotion, for more than thirty years of my life, I had not seen this early stuff, which is part of a multivolume collection of all of his strips. Who needs to read them all but scholars and sentimental collectors? But I saw them in the library and I thought I would look at a couple early volumes and a couple later ones to compare, with Harry, and to see if I would again enjoy, and whether Harry would enjoy. The early stuff has all of his signature economical tone and saddish humor (like Pooh, in a way, all these comically dysfunctional character!), and if his drawing is a little rougher and less developed in these early days, it is all there in the spareness, the economical line. A master, without question. You can see how (sad) Chris Ware (and so many others, of course) was influenced by Schulz. A master, without question, and one easy for daily readers to sort of forget as a master since he was just so much in our lives, he made it look easy, like there was nothing to it. And so fun to read again. For some reason I stopped reading daily comic strips several years ago. Maybe I need to read more again, online and in the last years of print?
  
  And for Harry? I was looking this morning for the 1952-53 volume, all over the house, after finishing this one first with him… and finally, I looked in his bed, and there, with a book mark 1/3 of the way in, is this volume. He likes Charlie Brown! He likes Peanuts! I will add his commentary later…. and I have to see if I can find that sweatshirt for him… nah… something cooler for him.
• 
  Michael

  Just like its predecessor, there are a lot of Peanuts cartoons collected here that I don't recall reading in my younger days. How much of that is that the memories of those collections are lost to the ravages of time and how much of it is that these particular cartoons weren't included in previous collections, I can't really say. What I can say is that reading the entire creative output of Charles M. Schulz from two years is a fascinating journey.
  
  In this second collection, the characters and characteristics of those characters are starting to come into better shape. Snoopy still acts like a regular dog, only occasionally talking to the audience and rarely having the flights of fancy that will later define him. Lucy comes to the fore a bit more and feels like the showcase star of this collection -- from her being a fussbudget to her dissatisfaction with going to nursery school. There are hints of the Lucy that many of us associate with the character developing here, though I'd argue she has a gentler, more human side than we see in later years. (This may be something that I will have to observe as I continue to read these collections).
  
  Over the course of two years, you can see Schultz refining his technique, his humor and his characters. There are some characters who make appearances here that will slowly fade into the background, while others are just emerging. Schroeder has his love of Beethoven and serves as a sounding board for budding cartoon artist Charlie Brown. Pigpen makes his debut toward the later half of the collection, with various observations that you can kick up a cloud of dust everywhere you go and still be happy and well adjusted. One of the more intriguing introductions toward the end of 1954 is Carlotta Brown, who essentially looks like Charlie Brown, drawn in a dress and with curly hair. Her other defining characteristic is that she talks in a loud voice (think Monty Python's guy who likes to shout). It will be interesting to see how long she stays around and if and how Schultz fazes her out. I'll be honest that I've never come across her in previous collections -- and there may be a reason.
  
  The book remains a fascinating look at an iconic comic strip as it develops. It also continues to show that Peanuts is never static.
• 
  pierlapo quimby

  Nella striscia del 1° giugno '54 compare per la prima volta la coperta di Linus (e nella tavola domenicale del 17 ottobre '54 si viene a sapere che è proprio fatta di ciniglia), il 13 luglio '54 è la volta di Pig-Pen, nella striscia del 6 agosto '54 c'è il tema di un film di David Lynch. Quanto al resto, Lucy si conferma per il secondo e terzo anno consecutivi la piantagrane numero uno al mondo e il buon vecchio Charlie Brown è sempre il buon vecchio Charlie Brown.
• 
  Victor The Reader

  Another great collection of Peanuts comics as we also see the debuts of messy little Pigpen and curly haired Charlotte. A (100%/Outstanding)
• 
  47Time

  The life of a child is so difficult. You have to decide what to play, who to play with, what toys to use, where to meet your friends. It's just so tiring day after day. I don't know how they do it. On top of it all they rarely support one another, preferring to be mean, sarcastic little devils instead.
• 
  Gabriel

  Comics about nothing :)
• 
  Brandt

  So the way I usually do these The Complete Peanuts reviews is that I share my favorite strip from the collection I am reviewing, because it is almost impossible to review Peanuts because the likelihood is that anyone reading this volume already knows how great Peanuts is. However, The Complete Peanuts covers the entire run of Peanuts from 1950 to 2000 and it is pretty much accepted that Schulz' 60s output is the high water mark for the strip. As such, some of the volumes may not rise to the level of the five star treatment I would give Peanuts as a whole or especially the 60s volumes, which I have not reviewed yet. This is one of those volumes, where you see Schulz still experimenting with the characters in Peanuts and certain major players are not yet in their fully realized forms (the most obvious being Linus, who is still a toddler in this collection and not the child philosopher that most readers think of when they think of Linus. Snoopy is not what Snoopy becomes.) As such, this volume is not completely representative of Schulz' best work, even though it is obvious that this is a strip in its ascendance, and the best is yet to come.
  
  With that in mind, I did have some difficulty picking my favorite strip from the collection. Later editions will pose me the opposite issue, where there are simply too many good choices to just pick one. I attribute this to the experimentation I alluded to earlier. The full cast is not yet in play in this collection, so the truly "classic" Peanuts is something to come. But this collection does feature the first appearances of Pig Pen in the strip, who first appeared in July of 1954. My pick is from August of 1954 and it is for purely sentimental reasons, as I believe this strip serves as the basis for one of the gags for my favorite Christmas specials, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Of course, Pig Pen's slovenly ways allow yet another channel for the Peanuts gang to channel their hostility on one of their own (I sometimes think that Schulz thought this was humanity's "default" setting.) This strip features the early character (not Peppermint) Patty laying into Pig Pen for being such a slob:
  
  
  
  While I have stated that this collection is in some ways experimental on Schulz's part, Pig Pen's response to Patty's criticism is indicative of the sorts of philosophical questions Schulz could pose in four small panels. Yes, Pig Pen's more detestable attributes are on display, but as he notes, they are consistent. This poses a larger question that Patty should infer from the conversation. Is it better to know the devil you know or the devil you don't? Think about this from the perspective of a more serious issue--racism and white supremacism. Which is more insidious--the openly racist person who sounds and acts like a dangerous fool, or the person who claims not to be racist but when push comes to shove, their actions belie the actual truth. In my estimation, the closet racist is the more problematic person because they are harder to dismiss and therefore are more dangerous. This shows Schulz's ultimate genius on the pages of Peanuts--he is able to disarm these existential dilemmas by expressing them out of the mouths of babes. And yet, the dilemmas are not forgotten, and perhaps the strip is an impetus for the reader to engage in reflection and self-evaluation, even if the trigger was something so innocuous as what most would view as a harmless comic strip.
• 
  Dei

  Overview:The daily and Sunday comics collected here are not available in any printed Peanuts collection. Since their original publication more than 50 years ago, dozens of them have remained unreprinted. Charlie Brown, Shermy, Patty, Violet, Schroeder, Lucy, the baby Linus, and Snoopy are among the characters featured in the second book, which is jam-packed with exciting happenings. Pigpen and his cloud of dust first appeared in the pages of the comic book in late 1954.
  In this volume, Linus still does not speak but begins to emerge as one of the most captivating characters in the strip. For now, Charlie Brown's best friend remains Schroeder. Finally, as a proudly troubled girl, Lucy is undeniably the star of this second book.
  
  Pros:When I read these comics from my youth, I can't help but feel nostalgic. Even though they are decades old, many of these tales have a fresh perspective because of the wry humor of that well-known cartoonist. It's fascinating to observe how the strokes have changed through time. The book provides daily doses of humor that don't have to be consumed all at once. It's ideal for breaking up a routine or when a particular reading is too demanding.
  
  Cons:The different personalities of the members of the gang might be unusual to new readers as well as long-time readers. Really if such a remark isn't even a criticism, I'll leave it on the review anyway.
• 
  Hymerka

  Схоже, я знайшла себе серед персонажів Peanuts: боюся, що це Люсі. =) А може, просто так здалося, бо її в цьому томі справді багато, недарма вона на обкладинці (Раніше я, звичайно, думала, що я Снупі...)
  У другому томі Peanuts усе більше стають схожими на те, як ми їх знаємо, з'являються деякі культові образи, як-от Лайнус зі своїм коциком. Також тут набагато більше Снупі, якого усі ми так любимо.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Sonia Jarmula

  Still makes me laugh out loud, still gets to me with those soft and tragic moments. Peanuts is a masterpiece.
• 
  Larry

  Another great volume of peanuts
• 
  Katrina

  I liked this volume - every time I picked it up, I enjoyed reading it, and powered through probably 200 pages of it today alone - but I didn't love it quite as much as
  The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952: Vol. 1 Paperback Edition. Maybe this is the era where Schulz and his critics felt he wasn't yet at the height of his powers. I did laugh out loud at a few points, and it was interesting to see him feeling out the development of his characters, but some of the jokes started to feel a little repetitious.
  
  Although, with 50 years of writing the same comic strip, that would be hard to avoid. It's honestly a little baffling to me that he stuck to the same thing for all those decades, without trying to branch off into something new. There hasn't been any information about that type of thing in the essays so far - did he ever try pitching other comics, or was he genuinely happy doing the same thing every day for five decades straight?
  
  Or maybe that's a more modern mentality, where people don't find a trade (like Schulz's or Charlie Brown's barber father) and settle into that for the rest of their life. Maybe restlessness and boredom are the curses of having too many options. Schulz could've had something to say about that, and honestly, over the course of 50 years writing philosophic musings channeled through kids, he probably did.
  
  While there are some thought-provoking comics in this volume, there's also a lot of "gotta get the daily gag out the door" strips. I am very, very tired of Violet's mud pies. They were hardly funny for their first couple of appearances two years prior, and they haven't gotten more clever over time. Schulz seems to be floundering a little bit with figuring out a personality for her, which may be part of why some of his later characters became more memorable, and why he discarded some others. (Poor Shermy.)
  
  I know I said in my last review that I've never liked Lucy, and while she does initially still feel like an unlikable, selfish bully (who picks on her little brother and won't share any of her toys), after another couple hundred pages of comics, I started to see her differently. While she was introduced pretty early on as a "fussbudget," I'd never really thought about what that means. Looking at it from an adult perspective, I think she's actually a little bit OCD, and that could be part of why she doesn't get along with the other kids in the way you'd expect. (It also makes it interesting that she starts running a psychiatric booth in later years - did that originate from her parents taking her to a child psychologist? I kinda want to keep reading to discover how that begins.)
  
  In the two years covered in this volume, Lucy starts up some of her more obsessive habits: attempting to count stars and raindrops, studying a bug on the sidewalk for hours, panicking at the sight of a bit of fuzz on the ground, freaking out over other people's germs on her food. This is where I started to think oh...I don't hate her. I kind of understand her - because I, too, have refused to eat food because someone touched the ice in my glass with their fingers, or used a knife to cut two different kinds of sandwiches, leaving the residue of Sandwich 1 on my unrelated sandwich.
  
  "I'm frustrated and inhibited, and nobody understands me," Lucy says in a Sunday comic on p. 167. The humorous bit is that she's fleeing off-panel after disrupting everyone else's fun and kicking their blocks over, but I think there's something deeper to it, like with a lot of Schulz's jokes. Later on (p. 214), she has a four-panel tantrum where she yells, "I don't like you, Mother! I don't like Daddy, either! And I don't like my baby brother! I don't like ANYBODY! I don't even like MYSELF!"
  
  This feels different than Charlie Brown's regular "persecution complex" (p. 256), where he always thinks people don't like him, or that the girls he walks by are gossiping about him. (In reality, they're usually discussing movies or something, not thinking about him at all.) Lucy is highly imaginative, anxious and, as she says, misunderstood, and I'll admit that I may have misjudged her. That's the type of quality characters that Schulz creates.
  
  Speaking of Charlie Brown, there's always a reason that he's left out of things. At one point, Violet and Patty invite him to a party, and he immediately begins telling them all the ways that they should change their party to be "better" - according to him. It's no wonder they usually try to hold back their invitations! In other strips, a character will start to share something with him - a story, their feelings, concerns about their health - and Charlie Brown will respond absently then spend the remaining three panels talking entirely about himself instead, as the original speaker walks away or shows visible irritation.
  
  This, I think, is probably Schulz poking a little bit of fun at himself and his own introverted insecurities. Charlie Brown seems oblivious to why people dislike him, but I have a feeling Schulz has had experiences like this, where he found himself unable to stop talking, knowing that he was irritating others, but not being able to figure out how to shut off the sudden torrent of self-centered conversation. It's a thing anxious, shy people can tend to do, which only makes social interactions worse and perpetuates the problem.
  
  More directly self-referential: Charlie Brown starts writing comic strips in this volume, and every time he reads off one of his (terrible) jokes and gets criticized for it, he deflates or complains about how no one can properly comprehend his elevated sense of humor. Four years into writing Peanuts, and six years into the comics world, Schulz would've had more than his share of these types of experiences.
  
  "I have the feeling that everybody is laughing at me," Charlie Brown says on p. 193. "The only time nobody laughs at me is when I'm trying to be funny."
  
  There are some really great, clever jokes in this volume - too many to quote directly, but one of my favorites was a very simple one by baby Linus on p. 74. Terribly frustrated by his inability to stack blocks, he cries, "I'd like to kick these blocks clear across the room! I'd do it, too, if I knew how to stand up..."
  
  I think that joke encapsulates a lot of what gives Peanuts its unique brand of humor. You have kids with very adult concerns, who are trapped by the restrictions of their small lives and small bodies. Linus physically can't do anything to express his very grown-up frustrations, which is true for pretty much all the characters over the years - including Snoopy, who still acts very much like a more-or-less regular dog at this point, but is beginning to express his dissatisfaction with the limits imposed on him by not being human. As he says, it wasn't his choice to be a dog!
  
  Sidenote: I'm not sure when it became clear that Snoopy is Charlie Brown's dog, because we're four years in at this point, and he spends so much time in every kid's house (and then sleeping in his doghouse in an unidentified outdoor area) that he really doesn't seem to belong to anyone in particular. The kids wander in and out of each other's houses just as casually, though (except for when Violet is kicking Charlie Brown out of hers), so I think that's one of the boundary-blurring things that Schulz didn't care too much about. He just wrote the joke in whichever house it fit best, and stuck different kids in to carry the dialogue.
  
  There are a lot of familiar elements developing throughout this volume. Lucy's crush on Schroeder begins when he tells her he's playing the Nutcracker Suite. Lucy, being very small and hopeful, walks away blushing, convinced that he called her "sweet." Linus, once he learns how to walk and how to properly stack blocks, picks up some of those genius traits that drive Charlie Brown batty - suddenly he's able to construct anything out of blocks, or to create towering card palaces, or blow balloons into squares. He also gets his security blanket pretty late in this volume, although it's not anchored in as one of his major personality traits just yet.
  
  Charlie Brown still isn't the pitiful creature he became later on; the creativity and humor of his snowmen particularly remind me more of Calvin & Hobbes than the Peanuts I grew up with. While he's occasionally pretty bad at baseball, it's in that normal kid way, where of course a six year old can't throw a ball very far - not the "Charlie Brown sucks at sports and is useless" trope of subsequent decades.
  
  The only really negative note of this volume was a multi-part Sunday comics storyline about Lucy in a golf tournament. It didn't make sense, wasn't funny or all that interesting, and didn't fit at all with the regular vibes of the comic. (So, so many adults, too!) It cut off with a lame joke about Lucy running home to take a nap right before she won the women's tournament; I wonder if Schulz realized he'd written a dud and had to close it off before it got any worse.
  
  As for new characters, Pig-Pen's the most notable one. A curly-haired, loud-mouthed girl named "Charlotte Braun" shows up in the last few pages and doesn't create much of an impression. I don't remember her at all, but apparently she didn't last very long, so I suppose she was a failed experiment as Schulz tried to add interest to his comic.
  
  This volume's introduction, by Walter Cronkite, is a little better than Garrison Keillor's mess, but it's again so obvious that they're just choosing Famous People instead of people who actually knew Schulz or had interesting things to say about him and his comics. Cronkite spends most of the two pages talking about how he almost met Schulz once, but didn't, and how sad he was because if they had met, he probably would've been able to be his friend and call him "Sparky." That...is not an anecdote that adds anything to this volume.
  
  Confusingly, he refers to a long interview that was supposedly included in Volume 1. It wasn't in my copy, so maybe it only got printed in the hardback versions, and left out of the smaller and more cost-effective paperbacks? That's disappointing...I have a feeling I would've found that an interesting read. In this volume, we just have a short one-page Schulz biography at the very end, with no new information.
  
  One last interesting thing: on p. 250, Charlie Brown tries to sell one of his new comic strip ideas. "It's really sort of an adventure series, see? It's all about this fellow who rides clear across the United States on a power mower..." When Schroeder shows zero interest in it (to be fair, it didn't mention Beethoven once), Charlie Brown wanders off, muttering, "I thought the public was interested in science fiction?"
  
  I found this amusing because of The Straight Story, a critically acclaimed biographical film from the '90s about a guy who wrote a lawn mower across a couple U.S. states. Schulz was ahead of the times, yet again. He died in 2000, so I wonder if he saw that film, and if he had a little chuckle to himself, remembering the boy whose stories just couldn't make the cut.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Marcel

  Die "Peanuts" gewinnen an Fahrt - und an Profil. Erster Auftritt von Pig-Pen.
• 
  Robert Beveridge

  Charles Schulz, The Complete Peanuts, vol. 2: 1953-1954 (Fantagraphics, 2004)
  
  1953 is still early days for Peanuts, and the strip still lacks some of what we now think of as that “classic” Peanuts vibe (Linus can't talk yet, Woodstock hasn't been introduced, the core gang is evolving but not quite there yet), but it gets closer to the mark. Pigpen is introduced mid-1954-ish and immediately becomes a main character. There's a great stretch in spring '53 about Lucy's attempt to become the world's first six-year-old golf pro. Snoopy stops being an expressionist in a couple of strips and starts getting vocals. (So does Linus, but like Snoopy, everything Linus says is in his head.) There are a couple of jokes that tread the line between “running gag” and “repetitive” still, but reading early Peanuts is like reading early Tintin (something we in America didn't have a chance to do until recently, and that too was thanks to Fantagraphics); it's great to see where the comic you've known and loved your whole life was before you were born. ****
  
• 
  Frank

  I ordered a bunch of books from the library recently, but this is the only one that's come in, so I've been reading through it in spare moments. Franzen's references to Peanuts and Charles Schulz got me interested in reading some of the early strips. They are more sour than I expected, more adult, and funnier. I always thought of Charlie Brown as a pure victim, but in these strips he can be just as big a jerk as the other characters, as well as excessively self-pitying. Reading through these comics, I can see why people see Peanuts as an influence on Calvin and Hobbes. There's the whole idea of adult thoughts being put in the mouths of children, for one, but Schulz's crisp lines and economy of visual expression also find an echo in Watterson's work. There does seem to be more joy in Calvin and Hobbes, though. The world of Peanuts--and this I do recall from my experiences with the TV shows--is a fairly unhappy place, full of casual cruelty, anxiety, embarrassment, and irony.
• 
  Gabriel Franklin

  Charlie Brown: "Sometimes I get so depressed..."
  Snoopy passes by, smiling.
  Charlie Brown: "But all it takes to cheer me up is a smile from a dog..."
• 
  Michael

  What is there left to say about Peanuts? Not a whole lot, so Ill stick to the basics: Many years ago, an insanely talented man named Charles Schulz created a comic strip about a group of children. It was alternately funny, charming, melancholy and whimsical. Mostly, it just reminded us how human we all are and how connected humanity truly is.
  
  This book collects some of Schulzs earliest Peanuts strips. Pig-Pen makes his debut. Linus clings to his security blanket for the first time. Charlie Browns kite misadventures begin. Lucy Van Pelts five-decade-long crush on Schroeder is born in these pages. But this is more than comics history. Its Americana history. The strip doesn't hit its high point for another year or two, but its still a cut above most other daily strips (including modern ones). The gags are mostly good (although many of them are still being recycled today), and Schulz's art is very crisp. Charlie Browns heartbreak and disappointment is still only occasional at this point. He'll soon by the most recognized loser in American literary history, but he gets a few licks and pokes of his own in during these early cartoons. (And after seeing the poor kid suffer for so many decades, I take some small pleasure in seeing him give as good as he gets.)
  
  The most bizarre aspect of seeing such early Peanuts strips is seeing how innocent and nave the young Lucy Van Pelt was when she started her cartoon career. Violet and Patty (not Peppermint Patty, the other one) are Charlie Brown's primary tormentors, while the most recognized harasser, Lucy, mostly frustrates Charlie Brown with her constant questions, youth (she and Linus are the only members of the Peanuts gang who seem to have aged, at least a few years, over the strips 50-year reign), and persistence.
  
  Also, to give proper credit, Seth and the Fantagraphics crew do a great job putting these volumes together. It's a gorgeous book, although I still wish that the Sunday strips were in color as Schulz intended them to be.
• 
  Louie the Mustache Matos

  After Charles Schulz, creator of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang, passed away in 2000, comics publisher Fantagraphics decided that the entire Peanuts catalogue should be preserved. Schulz drew the newspaper comic strip for an unprecedented fifty years, dying days before his retirement was finalized. Being historically relevant and forming a part of the American zeitgeist, Fantagraphics divided the Peanuts catalogue into two year increments. Volume 2 shows all of the comic strips for 1953 and 1954. The trade paperback is introduced with a foreword by the esteemed journalist Walter Cronkite (who passed away in 2009). Here, we still have some of the originals that never took as well as the later versions of the characters: Patty, Shermy, and Violet. Linus is a toddler and his blanky is introduced. Pigpen and Charlotte Braun are introduced while regulars: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Schroeder, and Lucy continue with Lucy becoming an absolute. . . let's use Schulz's term "fussbudget." Lucy is not a nice girl. Some of the things she does and says are really dark. Later on Schulz does things with Lucy to mitigate some of those dark things, but even so. . . "Dammmmn, girl." All in all, a fantastic compilation. This is my #3 of 10 GN/TPBs for my 2023 reading goal.
• 
  BubblesTheKat77

  The Complete Peanuts is a hilarious collection of short comics that will keep you reading! Characters, such as 'Pig Pen' and 'Charlotte Braun' are introduced, bring more funny comics! I am eager to watch each and everyone of the children grow, and, I guess, reading book by book will let me.
  It's one book less.....? I nonetheless loved this amazing book that kept me reading..... as soon as I picked it up again, that is.
  Snoopy is my favorite so far. I have no idea why, he's just...... so........ Weird? Different? His own thing? I honestly don't know, but he's nonetheless my favorite.
  I made a decision:
  
  READALLOFTHEPEANUTS
  
  (Highly recommend this book, especially after reading Vol. One)
• 
  Paul

  In this volume, the strip continues the slow evolution to its more familiar form. The kids here read a bit younger than one might expect. Whereas in its final form, Charlie Brown seems to be around 9 or 10, here he veers closer to first grade, with Lucy a preschooler, and a pre-verbal (if precocious) Linus still a toddler. The melancholy weight of the world, that Peanuts trademark, still descends from time to time. On the whole, the strip remains a model of economy and wit, a joy to read. I’m not sure if I’ll make it through all of the volumes, but for now I’m eager to plow on towards volume 3.
• 
  Sam

  Snoopy is going through some weird growing pains and looks super odd at several points in this one, like he's been run over or something.
  
  Also, first instances of pig-pen are so grim, he looks like a biblical plague as portrayed by a small child.
  
  Also also there are occasional instances of nightmare fuel, such as:
  
• 
  Jamieson

  The second volume of complete Peanuts continues the fun. This volume sees the introduction of Linus' security blanket and Pig-pen. It also introduces Charlotte Braun, a curly-haired girl who talks really loud. This is a character, I'd never met before. I've seen some of these (Sunday strips scattered throughout) in various small collections that I had as a kid. Another great collection for those who love Peanuts.