The Complete Peanuts 1953-1954: Vol. 2 Paperback Edition

This second volume in the Complete Peanuts series is even better than the first one. Charles Schulz really started to come into his own by this point. The characters are closer to the Peanuts characters we all came to know and love, although they are all younger at this point. Two new characters were introduced in 1954, they being the legendary Pig Pen and the soon-to-be-forgotten Charlotte Braun. Pig Pen of course is famous for being the dirtiest kid in the world. Charlotte Braun is obscure for being a girl who talks too loud. This is great stuff, and all Peanuts fans should get this book.

The Complete Peanuts 1953 To 1954 is the latest in a series of anthologies created to collect the entire Peanuts comic strip series, including daily and Sunday strips. Featuring an introduction by Walter Cronkite - who expresses wistful reminiscence at losing his one and only chance to meet Schulz before his unfortunate passing - The Complete Peanuts 1953 To 1954 continues its early years of the strip by introducing the staple character of Pig Pen to the cast of Charlie Brown, Shermy, Violet, Schroeder, Patty, Lucy, Linus, and Snoopy. Mirthful, whetted, keenly observant of childhood disappointments and cruelties, The Complete Peanuts 1953 To 1954 also offers some key insights into the early days of the strip before it settled into conventions more familiar to later readers. Snoopy still walks on all fours; Linus is too young to talk yet; adults occasionally speak off-panel and can even be seen (from a three-year old's point of view that is). Observe Lucy's amazing golf prodigy talents, and a fascinating strip that may well be genesis of why she torments Charlie Brown every year by yanking away a football before he can kick it - for Charlie Brown himself has mercilessly yelled at her for being personally unable to kick a football further than a few inches! A classic masterpiece, and member of a series that is an absolute must-have for true fans of Schulz's genius.

Maybe in its latter days Peanuts became more of a cute kids strip, but in its early days it epitomized childhood cruelty. Sandcastles are cheerfully kicked and smashed to the ground, kids constantly discuss why they hate each other, they manipulate each other for personal gain, they yell, scream, throw things, hit each other, kick other people's possessions and on and on. It's an onslaught of bare raw human nature in the form of little human blobs. Pure Id reigns in this domain. Lucy comes of age in this volume. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the January 24th, 1954 Sunday page (pg. 167). She kicks everyone's prized possessions across the room while yelling "That's what I think of your 'ol stamp collection!!" and "That's what I think of your ol' stupid marbles!!" The last panel has all of the kids running after her mob-style as she pleads "I'm frustrated and inhibited. And nobody understands me." Another strip has Lucy whacking poor baby Linus on the head. When Charlie Brown pleads "What did you hit him for?" Lucy replies "Because he was there!" (May 24th, 1954, pg. 219). She's pretty nasty throughout to pretty much everyone. But she also has a whimsical side such as when she's counting stars or raindrops. Charlie Brown's metamorphosis into the loser we all know starts to gain momentum. Early on he could be defiant, obnoxious, loud, or cunning. By the end of the volume he's more depressive and shunned than ever. Linus is still a baby throughout, but some words emerge, usually in defiance of Lucy's nasty schemes to get him in trouble. The security blanket shows up also for the first time. Even Charlie Brown experiments with it. Schulz also took some risks in May, 1954. He introduced visible adults into the strip for the first (and probably the last) time. A series of Sunday strips finds Charlie Brown and Lucy playing in a golf tournament. They are surrounded by adults. The juxtaposition of very realistically drawn adults and little abstract circular kids makes for a disorientating visual experience. Pig-Pen appears for the first time in 1954. He's more of a one-gag character and not as strong as the rest of the crew. The same can be said for Charlotte Braun. She appeared then disappeared forever in late 1954. Her gag? She talks too loud. And of course Snoopy. There's loads of great Snoopy strips in this volume. Many are purely sight gags, but Snoopy does begin to "talk" around this time. One of the best Snoopy strips is October 11th, 1954 (pg. 279) where Charlie Brown tries to take Snoopy's picture. It's purely visual but a sure sign of things to come. It's amazing that strips featuring old cathedral televisions and radios, and Brownie-style cameras can still evoke outloud laughter. The humor strikes at many different places, and works on many levels, from the physical to the intellectual and thus appeals to many kinds of people. Something lurks here for almost everyone. Some people could even find parts of the strip depressing. After

It is such a pleasure to read through these early Peanuts comic strips. There are so many things to discover: the first appearance of Linus, Lucy as a champion golfer, the brief first appearance of the security blanket. Admittedly, some of the discoveries are real surprises: adults speak, Snoopy verbalizes (albeit in his head) and Charlie Brown does always lose. Still, it is a joy to see how Schultz developed in these early years and began to find his voice. This series of books is turning into one of the great collections of all time.

The second volume of the proposed 25 volume "Complete Peanuts" set contains all of the Peanuts strips from 1953 and 1954. It continues the exploits of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy and Schroeder (the latter two have grown up quite a bit since the first volume from 1950 to 1952) as well as Linus, who although still a baby begins to show the intelligence that would be a large part of his personality for the life of the strip. We see Pig-Pen introduced in this volume as well as what many Peanuts fans consider the "lost character", Charlotte Braun. This character, who appeared for about a two-week stretch in late 1954 and was never heard from again had the fussbudget personality that was later assumed by Lucy. Having only seen one strip with Charlotte before getting this book, I have to say that Charlotte was annoying in her short tenure in the strip and Charles Schulz probably knew it was best to cut his ties with the character. But she still is a fascinating part of Peanuts history. If you get this book, you will notice that the quality of the reproduction of some of the strips are less than average. There is an explanation in the book that many of the early strips were lost from the Schulz collection and that there are not many copies of newspapers around to pull the strips from (their next best option) and that microfilm (where most newspapers are usually kept) is usually not acceptable for reproduction. So for some strips, they used the best they had. Sure, it would be nice to have pristine copies, but at least I'm glad something is there. All-in-all, it is another masterpiece and I can't wait for the next volume, which will be the strips of 1955 and 1956!