The Family Van Pelt Episode 2 - Big Kids Drive Me Crazy

Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This is Unpacking Peanuts. Today we're looking at the Van Pelts again. It's our second episode in our season long look at Linus, Lucy Rerun, and the mysterious, Van Pelt adults. 

I'll be your host for the proceedings. My name is Jimmy Gownley. I'm also a cartoonist. I did things like Amelia Rules, Seven Reasons not to Grow up and the Dumbest Idea Ever. And you can find all my new comics for free over on gvillecomics.substack.com or you can order those Emilia Rules anniversary editions right now. And joining me, as always, are my pals, co hosts and fellow cartoonists. He's a playwright and composer for the Man Complicated People, as well as for this very podcast. He's the co creator of the original comic book Price Guide, the original editor for Amelia Rules, and the creator of the Instagram sensation. Nope. And the creator of such great strips, Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells and Tangled River. It's Michael Cohen.

Michael: I'm on Instagram too, but it's on anyway. Say hey.

Jimmy: And he's executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former Vice president of Archie Comics, and the creator of the Instagram sensation Sweetest Beast. It's Harold Buchholz.

Harold: Hey. Hello.

Jimmy: And she's a sea captain. She's a computer programmer and a, Fantastic. I ran out of things.

Michael: She's a patriot, 

Jimmy: Patriot. Keeping us out of trouble is producer and editor Liz Sumner. Howdy, guys. We're off to a fantastic start.

Harold: Yeah, none of that was by rote, right? It was all from the heart.

Jimmy: Well, I never wrote the intro down ever.

Harold: That's crazy.

Jimmy: So I just. I never write anything that 

Liz: I'm pretty sure our regular listeners could just recite it and I invite them to record themselves and send it in on the hotline.

Jimmy: Oh, that's great.

Liz: Yeah.

Jimmy: All right, so we're back here today, and we're. We're discussing the Van Pelt family, the Linus and Lucy and rerun of it all. So what have, what are your thoughts having gone this far? We're just in the very, very early stages of having, you know, Linus in. and the first thing I thought about is we really don't get to see the fully formed Lucy until Linus arrives.

Harold: Yeah, in these strips for sure. Yeah. She doesn't have somebody to boss around.

Jimmy: Right? Yeah. And I guess she was the youngest in the strip.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: She's still shorter, so she's still, technically younger.

Jimmy: I have a hard time with that as a cartoonist, like, thinking all these characters should be different sizes, you know, but you sort of want to draw everything under your one armature.

Harold: But.

Michael: Yeah. Well, that said, Jaime Hernandez was the pioneer who actually started drawing people actually very different sizes.

Jimmy: Crazy. he's a master.

Michael: Body shapes. No one had done that before.

Jimmy: Yeah. He also has a great idea of one of the toughest things for, I think, cartoonists who work in a more realistic style to do is to draw children.

Jimmy: And he basically avoids it by. He uses his regular style for everything. And then when the kids come in, they're kind of drawn like a cross between Peanuts and Dennis, the Menace, and it works totally well. Yeah.

Michael: They're far cartoonier than the adult characters.

Jimmy: Yeah. Because I'll tell you, there's nothing scarier in the world than a Neal Adams drawn child.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: You know what I mean?

Liz: There's a very scary painting in a local church that was built in, like, 1200 around here. And so, what year would you say that painting is from? The one with the really muscular baby? It looks like a Kirby drawn cherub. Yeah.

Michael: Those are probably Renaissance era.

Liz: It's frightening. 

Michael: They're hard.

Jimmy: The hardest thing to do is little.

Michael: Yeah. These little buff babies on Mary's knee.

Harold: Why hasn't that been a thing? Yeah. Buff babies. Yikes. Little buff babies.

Jimmy: We're taking that to the licensing fair next year, guys. We got it for you.

Harold: Buff babies. Yeah. And then the exercise council can get behind us.

Jimmy: You know what? And we'd probably sell it and become millionaires, and I'd have to just, like, walk into the ocean.

Jimmy: So to just explain exactly what we're doing, we've looked at a bunch of the strips. If you haven't been with us yet this. This season, we looked at a bunch of the strips of Lucy's earliest days, pre Linus. And now we've just gotten up to. To baby Linus. He. We made some news because apparently the Peanuts wiki does not count. Our, the last strip, we covered last episode as Linus's first word. But we have definitely identified ha with two exclamation points as his first work. Because it was said with sarcasm.

Michael: I agree.

Jimmy: All right, so do we have anything else we want to talk about up front before we get to the strips, or should we just kind of get into it.

Michael: Well, I do want to comment on the first panel on the very.

Harold: First strip here we're going to get.

Jimmy: Yeah. Oh, you want to start? All right, let's just do it. Let's break format.

Michael: All right. Breaking format.

Liz: Nope, breaking format is not a good idea if we don't tell them what strip we're talking about. This is March 8, 1953. Now back to our program already in progress.

Michael: Is that their real house? It doesn't look like there's another house beyond it. It looks like a big field. And he says, as long as I'm at the end of this block.

Harold: Well, I don't see, I mean how it's colored and how it's drawn in the second panel when he's at the doorbell. Where is that? On the house? Did he go around the back?

Michael: Yeah, right.

Harold: The servants entrance.

Jimmy: That second door, it looks like almost like a hotel. Like there's a door, a red door and then a space and another red door. Or is that the. Oh, that's the yellow door and that's a red frame.

Liz: Oh, right, right. Yes.

Michael: Yeah. But that is the decor of the house.

Harold: So yeah, he's. It's freshly snowed and he's. He's going to have to trudge around the back door if that is the house. And I don't see the picket fence either, so I'm not sure what's going on.

Michael: And the torch isn't red, so.

Jimmy: Yeah, but are we sure this is the original color?

Michael: Good point.

Harold: Yeah, I don't think they would mess with Charles Schulz's colors that he did. Color?

Jimmy: I don't know. I mean, here's what. Well, one. Well, let me read it. 

March 8, 1953. It's a Sunday and Charlie Brown is walking to the end of the block to visit Linus and Lucy. And he says to himself, as long as I'm at this end of the block, I really ought to stop in and see Linus and Lucy. I haven't seen Linus for quite a while. And then Charlie, Brown rings the bell and Lucy answers and lets him in. And inside he says, how's your baby brother, Lucy? I don't think he's very well. I'm worried about him. She leads Charlie Brown to see Linus. And then we go into another room where Linus is sitting humming to himself, contentedly playing with some toys, some blocks. Charlie Brown looks on from behind him and says, why? He looks fine to me. In fact, he looks very happy. Lucy sneaks up behind him and says, no, I don't think so. Watch. And then, without Linus being aware she's behind him, Lucy screams, hey, Linus. Linus jumps out of his skin. And in the last panel, we see him trembling to himself, a nervous wreck. And Lucy says, see? He's awfully nervous.

Harold: Oh, that's so.

Michael: Lucy, get that kid a blanket. Wow.

Harold: I mean, it blew the hair fuzz off of, Charlie Brown. He doesn't have it over his eyebrows at the last panel. there's some other wonky stuff going on here. So we were talking about this door, which doesn't seem to line up with the house. But then, look, once he's inside, the doorknob is on the opposite side of the door, where it would be if.

Michael: Wow.

Harold: If that's the door he came in.

Michael: What I was thinking is she couldn't possibly reach it.

Harold: There's a lot of weird things going on here. Maybe he came to the dog door. And then there's the coat rack up front, so he's. I don't know what's going on.

Jimmy: Yeah, well, I mean, the easiest thing would just be that that is not Linus and Lucy's house, because it could be a cul de sac. And the end of the block is. Could be what Charlie Brown is looking at.

Harold: Yeah, well, it never struck me that. Okay, so they all live on the same block, at least at this point.

Jimmy: Ah.

Harold: And they are at the end of the block, so that I never knew. So the Van Pelts chose a home at the end. Yeah, you're right. It could be a cul de sac. It could be three houses at the end of the block.

Michael: My theory is there were no cul de sacs in 1953.

Harold: Okay.

Liz: Why do you have that theory?

Michael: Because I didn't see them till, like, the 70s. I mean, this street always leads to another street.

Jimmy: Well, then they didn't exist if you didn't see them.

Harold: Yeah. When did cul de sacs become part of planning for the suburbs?

Jimmy: Well, I guess in Europe a long time ago, because that's why bag end is called bag end. It's a pun on cul de sac. Bottom of the bag.

Michael: Good theory.

Jimmy: Not a theory. I read that. Well, I mean, put it this way. It's not my theory.

Harold: Somebody's theory, I guess. Our pal Google Gemini tells us the cul de sacs began to appear in the US around the 20s and 30s, notably in Radburn, New Jersey. Prototype neighborhood of the future.

Jimmy: Well, you can't listen to anybody from Radburn. That's well known.

Harold: Makes me just want to, get in the car, drive down to Radburn, New Jersey, and check it out. That would be pretty amazing.

Michael: Wow.

Harold: Buffalo. Buffalo, New York, also. So that 1922.

Jimmy: Anyway, anything else about this strip other than.

Harold: Other than the door? The doorknob?

Liz: Well, it's a precursor to needing a security blanket.

Jimmy: I briefly forgot what we were talking about.

Harold: I feel so bad for Linus here. I mean, that is. I. I've seen this stuff, and I think I did this stuff as a kid. You know, you just. You're testing how you can affect things around you, and they're often negative. I remember that. And it just. That queasy feeling of. Yeah. Used to just. I want to see if I can create some destruction, you know? And Lucy's, And the way that Lucy does it so deadpan. That's what's kind of so creepy about it, you know? And. And the fact that Charlie Brown's hair is gone in the last page. Those are all things that are very disturbing.

Jimmy: Well. But one good piece of news. Linus has not been dropped on his head yet. He's a perfectly round head. Not round, but a good curve.

Liz: dent. Watch.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Charlie Brown's wearing your hat, Jimmy, so.

Jimmy: Yeah, absolutely. By the way, I wore a hat like that when I was a little kid, too.

Harold: You did?

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: I think it's cool. Yeah. But. Ah, yeah, it's a nice little combo. Charlie Brown is a snazzy dresser in 1953 with his matching blue coat and cap. And he's wearing his red striped, classic shirt, so.

Jimmy: And going out in shorts in the middle of the winter.

Harold: Yeah, the shorts. Yeah. Isn't that weird? You know, Linus is indoors, and he's wearing. He's wearing the little overalls with the.

Jimmy: Long legs, but all kids were always wearing shorts in the. Right. That was like.

Harold: Yeah. What do you mean? In real life or in Peanuts?

Michael: No.

Jimmy: no. In, like, pop culture.

Michael: No. Getting your first long pants was, like, a big deal.

Harold: Yeah. Well, I don't know what that was all about, but.

Liz: Yeah, that was in the 20s. But not. Not when. When I was growing up.

Harold: Well, when the cul de sac was coming out.

Harold: Yeah. It's true. I don't know. What, did kids overheat?

Jimmy: I don't understand saving money by not paying for the extra fabric.

Michael: You don't want to buy new pants, like, every six months.

Jimmy: Yeah. The shorts might last longer because you wouldn't be able to.

Harold: Yeah. Or you just scuff up the, knees because you're always rounding the dirt.

Michael: And crawling around, wearing it outside. It's got to be cool.

Jimmy: Well, guys, we did it. gave our audience exactly what they wanted. Unfounded theories about pants in the 1920s.

Michael: Yeah. Now, when were blocks in?

Liz: And for all of our listeners in the uk, we're talking about trousers, not underwear.

Jimmy: Right. Thank you.

Harold: I think they probably got. They're onto us.

Liz: Okay.

Harold: Just guessing as usual.

Jimmy: Someone's head is what? 

March 22, 1953. All right, they are playing. This is, basically looks exactly like my childhood, except everyone was playing Star Wars. But in here they're playing it's the Earth Invaders says Patty. Schroeder says, get em, get em. And they have toy lasers. And hiding behind a little chair is Charlie Brown and Lucy.

Harold: Lasers?

Michael: Yeah. Not invented till the 70s.

And Charlie Brown says, bam, bam. Charge. And he and Lucy go running after the other two. And Charlie Brown's wearing like, blue space gloves. And they both have their toy, guns. And now they're running around yelling, kwam kawam zap. Pow. Kazap zap. Says Schroeder and Patty. Linus is just watching all this, taking it all in. And then it's another standoff between the four other kids. Womp pow. Pow. Bam. Bam. Charge!  Kawam Kawam zap. Then from off panel, Lucy's mother says, lucy, can't you and your friends play a little more quietly? And then Lucy says, all right, Mother. And then it cuts to Linus, the cutest little baby version of Linus, just smiling as he raises his rattle and it goes rattle, rattle. And then Lucy comes over to him and says, didn't you hear mother? Stop that awful noise?

Harold: Gosh, this ring's so crazy true.

Liz: And he's shaking and sweating again.

Harold: I know you feel so bad for Linus. Oh, my gosh, he's just being traumatized over and over.

Liz: Give him a blanket.

Jimmy: He is so happy. Raising that little rattle and rattling it. It is the funniest thing in the world. You know, it's. It's crazy. How many comic strips since we did our. These are the best 10 ever. How many I've seen. I could say, oh, that could have been in the best 10 ever. Oh, that could have been the best. This one I love. I never really think about it, but it's a great cartoon.

Harold: This has got so many interesting things going for it. I mean, the furniture that they're playing around. This kind of mid century creative furniture. So the Van Pelts have a real sense of style. Right. They are in the modern style. They were at the cutting edge of what's going on in furniture. that's one thing I can note here. And the other thing that really strikes me in this strip, which doesn't. When it does happen, you kind of take notice. The characters are so much themselves. They all have their own opinions about things. And in this last panel, when Lucy is yelling at Linus off in the distance, you see Schroeder, Patty and Charlie Brown all glowering at Linus, too. It's not that they're. In the previous strip, Charlie Brown was totally shocked the way Linus was by Lucy yelling at Linus. This time, everybody's in on it. 

Liz: They all are upset at Lucy's behavior.

Jimmy: That's what I thought. I thought they were looking at Lucy and thought it was. But I think you're probably actually right, Harold. It's funnier your way. But I thought they were looking at Lucy disapproving.

Harold: Really?

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Cause that would take. Yeah, that would take away from the humor. Right. If I would think. I would think he would have had just a neutral expression and the fact that he didn't have to have them in the strip right now. So do you think he put it in because he wanted to show that it wasn't acceptable for Lucy to do that, or are they in on it and makes it, you know, quadruply hard?

Jimmy: I thought the first. I thought that they were angry or not, disapproving with Lucy, but I don't think that now, having you said that, I think you're right, and I think it's. They're agreeing with Lucy.

Michael: I think he put him in to balance out the panel.

Jimmy: Yeah, but he could have moved it. Well, you know what I mean? Because there are those specific breaks he had to have. I mean, it could have been that just a long panel did look better having extra characters, in it, because he still would have had roughly that kind of set size space, Right?

Harold: Yeah. He could have split up the little rattles panel and the last panel any way he wanted, because that was part of a tier.

Jimmy: Yeah, but the rattle thing is such a small space. That kind of means that you're by default going to have a long horizontal panel. So it could have very well been. All right. Oh, we got this long horizontal one. All right. To balance it out, we're going to put the other characters in there. And that looks really sharp. And they don't then just disappear from the strip. But then he, he. I think you're right. He has the kids agreeing with Lucy, going, ugh. that little baby is just m. Ruining our play.

Harold: Wow. I mean, this strip has so many things you just don't see in Peanuts strips later. That opening drawing of Lucy in the lower right corner of the first panel, the three dimensionality, the depth of the characters, and the angles you're getting. Look at Schroeder in the fifth panel, where you're looking at him from behind and he's kind of crawling the way a soldier would be crawling with his gun. I've never seen that kind of drawing before, and it's so well done.

Jimmy: It is.

Harold: I would not have any idea how I would properly draw that in a clean, simple way. And that is just so nicely done. And we were talking about, like, that back three quarter view, which is so hard to do. And you have. The ears are quite delineated when he does that, and you have that on Schroeder. But I don't think about it as much because I'm looking at the overall drawing, which is a little more not, abstract, but super, super stylized. And then the ear, he put detail, and I don't think he would later.

Jimmy: Right. Well, I can't believe that we've spoken about this strip that long, and we, have not spoken about the lettering.

Liz: Yes.

Jimmy: First off, the lettering's beautiful, but particularly the W in the fifth panel.

Harold: To.

Jimmy: Show you how fast I know exactly how this happened. Right. So he's going. He loves this idea. And he's zipping through it in pencil.

Harold: He's so excited.

Jimmy: Yep. And he fl. He half cursive, draws the W, in pencil, and then when he goes back to ink it, it's like, oh, I kind of like that. So rather than making it a, traditional, like, bubble letter or whatever you'd call it, that to match the other ones, he actually follows the curve of, the cursive. And that's why there's that little negative space in the middle of the W. Yeah.

Harold: It's so nice. And I think one of the things I love, and maybe you guys do, too, we know that Schulz had been teaching at this art instruction school. We know that the first gig he got was lettering for the Catholic publication Topics or. And so the lettering he learned, and he loved, loved, loved comics. The lettering he learned is so classic comic book lettering in these early years. Uh-huh. I love it because it's like. It feels more to me like a comic book in a way. because that type of lettering was so standardized back then. It seemed like in comic strips there were a lot of different styles. But for some reason certain lettering styles became a little more prevalent in comics because you'd have one guy doing who knows how many pages for all these different artists and companies. But this particular. I don't know if you agree with this, Michael, but this particular lettering just feels like comic book lettering from the early 50s, I think, like Archie, I think, you know, just a lot of different comic book companies. This type of lettering would have fit right in from my perspective.

Liz: It reminds me of the. What's the name of the medical machine that comes out of the suitcase in Strange Attractors that's going to save Nurse Nebula?

Michael: Yeah, the Turbo nurse.

Liz: The Turbo Nurse, makes a whole lot of noises like this when it's getting to its full size.

Harold: Yeah. This is probably one of the showcases of his watering ever in Peanuts. There's just so much going on.

Jimmy: And I will say when you get a really good looking page with a lot of display lettering, you know it's just going to look great in color. It always looks great in color.

Liz: Is that really the original color? I don't remember Patty's hair ever being that color.

Jimmy: Her hair changes constantly.

Liz: That, that, that doesn't look like what it looked like in the newspaper.

Jimmy: Well, I mean, this has to be redone somehow. Even if they're covering coloring it to his specs, it's not like it ever really looked like this.

Liz: Okay, so it was. Those might be the specs, but when they're being created for jpeg, they are. They're different from a newspaper maybe.

Harold: Yeah, I guess. I mean we're all aware of the way they used to print color in the Sunday comic strips and in the comic books. They were using a dot pattern that was pretty coarse because it was on newspaper. And anything finer would just all bleed muddily together. So if we were looking at this today, especially the ones that are multiple colors that are. Nothing is solid, you'd see this mixture of halftone dots and it, it's a very different experience than seeing this really kind of unusual color. Right. For Patty's hair that is a solid, that would instead be this weird mixture of red, tiny red, you know, cyan and magenta and yellow dots making up that out of register, you know, floating over the hair. And those types of colors often looked kind of wonky and muddy because they, they weren't just solids. And to see it so clean. And I'm looking on my you know, my iPad Pro. And it. Yeah, it doesn't remind me of the look and feel of. Of comic strips.

Michael: Yeah.

Liz: And Patty's dress was more like the color of that chair rather than teal. I don't remember ever seeing teal in a newspaper in 1953. I don't remember very much from 1953.

Jimmy: Well, I only have. They only had 64 colors to choose from, so you could actually look and see of those.

Harold: Yeah, he was under the Binney and Smith rule. Crayon color choice 64. That's it. And you get a free sharpener.

Jimmy:  pro tip--If you're out there and you want to ever try to recreate that old bende dot look that Harold was just talking about to give your thing your comics, like an old 50s look or whatever. It's not all dots. As the things get. As the colors get more saturated, the dots fill in. So a lot of times you would see reds and stuff. You don't see the dots. You see just full color of red. And those are the colors that tend to be out of register because I think there's more ink, and I think it causes the paper to slide around a little bit. So, like lipstick is never on lips. Superman's S is almost never right or what? You know, back then, 

June 30, 1953, Linus is up on. On his feet, and Charlie Brown and Lucy are looking from behind. And Lucy says, hey, look at Linus. And there he is standing very proudly. And Lucy says, this is the first time he stood by himself. And Lucy and Charlie Brown were having some cookies. So Charlie Brown says, show him you're proud of him. Give him a cookie. Then Lucy hands one to Linus, saying, here, Linus. But the weight of the cookie just topples Linus over on his side.

Michael: Now we're getting into the origin of his head shape.

Harold: Yeah, it looks like a beautiful head shape there in that first panel, right? Yeah, Very, very peanut head. Although can justify the title. He didn't like, Schulz didn't like. But. And Peanuts in quotes I think is so funny. The upper left hand corner of the little Daily Strip. Really weird. Yeah, it's probably. Schulz was like, that's my commentary. Put it in quotes.

Jimmy: I think the drawings of Linus, particularly in 2 and 3, are very weird. I don't think his hair looks right. well, I think what it is, though, with the weirdness is that he's trying to convey a toddler, you know, taking their first steps. And it really works like that, but it just doesn't quite look like Peanuts drawing.

Liz: It looks sort of like a scarecrow.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Liz: And he had so much hair in the very first couple of strips.

Jimmy: Well, that happens often with babies, right? You know, they lose their hair before it grows back in.

Harold: Even Lucy doing a nice thing for Linus leads to his downfall. It's like Linus can't win in this family. Here she gives him a cookie and he falls over. This happens. So how many strips are there where the joke is Linus just falls over because of his weight distribution. It happens again and again and again and again. This is observation, right? This is probably a father seeing a child falling over over and over again.

Jimmy: Well, speaking of punchlines of Linus falling over. 

July 16, 1953. It's a hot day. Linus is sitting around, it looks like in just his shorts or maybe his swimming trunks, playing with a block, of course. And Lucy's sweating too, but she has an idea. She doesn't want her baby brother overheating, so she brings in a little portable fan. And then in the third panel, we see she leaves it with Linus and then she goes off to plug the fan in, and when it turns on, it knocks him over.

Harold: Clunk.

Michael: right on the back of his head.

Jimmy: In the back of his head. But doesn't seem to have affected the shape yet.

Harold: Look at the line on Linus's head in second panel. I mean, just the ink line and the first one.

Jimmy: Thick.

Harold: Super thick. Yeah. And very brushy looking.

Jimmy: Yeah. I mean, that line looks like Chris Ware to me, where he would do those very thick, controlled brush contour lines.

Harold: I don't quite know what's going on in the first two panels. Would you follow the back? The line that represents the back of Linus and then it strangely indents into his little shorts where it's like. I'm, Not exactly.

Jimmy: It's his baby fat.

Harold: It's his muffin top.

Jimmy: Yeah, it's his muffin top.

Harold: What he's leaning for. No, that's, Yeah, it's an. Especially the second panel. Yeah, it's just this little hard angle.

Jimmy: Yeah, it's very sharp.

Harold: Poor kid. But, yeah, it's. It's disturbing seeing how many times Linus would just fall over. He's. He's the victim over and over and over again in these early strips. And I don't know what that does for the reader. By the time he gets a little bit older. If you have this memory of Linus, you can't help but have sympathy for this. This little kid. He's just had all these bad things happen to him, and he didn't do anything. You know, he's just rattling his rattle and sitting, looking at a fan.

Jimmy: And that drawing of him rattling his rattle, that is just one of the funniest things ever. I, I, I remember I've always loved that strip. I think we should have given it much more attention during the reread, because that is one 

Michael: I think we all thought, 1953. Too early. Nothing too early.

Harold: Yeah, man. Now I'm looking at the line on Lucy's arm in the first panel in the back. It's like he's really going for, like, a shadow effect almost. Yeah, but nicely drawn fan, 1950s fan.

Jimmy: Oh, it's a hell of a fan, all right. And, speaking of fans, I bet we heard from some of our listeners out there. So how about we take a break, come back, check the mail, and then, read some more Linus Lucy strips?

Liz: Sounds good.

Harold: Lovely.

BREAK

Jimmy: Now, as you might know, all three of the hosts here on Unpacking Peanuts are, cartoonists ourselves. And, we would love for you to sample some of our work. If you want to do that, you can go over to unpackingpeanuts.com. check out the store there where you'll find links to all our books. New Amelia Rules Books, 25th Anniversary Edition with new stories out. Harold's Sweetest Beast books, all of Michael Stripp's Strange Attractor's Omnibus. Get them all there.

Liz: And now let's hear what some of you have to say.

Jimmy: And we're back. Hey, Liz, we're hanging out in the mailbox. Do we have anything?

Liz: We do. We heard from Tim Young, who's the, host of Deconstructing Comics. And, and he said, enjoyed your talk with Patrick. I'm not so familiar with MUTTS. I've added it to my King Features email, so I'll see what all the fuss is about. And then he says, when you were discussing coloring, you talked about fades. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Can you explain?

Jimmy: Sure. I mean, other people call it a gradient. Basically, what it is is you pick a, color that you're fading from and a color that you're fading to. And, you know, a digital process allows you to blend from one to the other. So that's how you get things like sunset effects, you know, or you, know a twilight where you wanted to go from a very, very dark blue down to a very light blue. It's just done by picking those two values and then allowing the computer to gradually change the tone between one to the other.

Harold: And before, computers didn't really exist in comics until computers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Liz: So.

Jimmy: Well, I mean, the way you would have to do it previously would be insane. You would do. You would cut like your screen tone for 100% magenta, then you'd cut it for like 75% magenta. And then maybe make like, you know.

Harold: It would, it would be.

Jimmy: You could do a fade, but it would not be smooth. It would be insanely time and labor intensive.

Harold: Well, I think Zipatone did have fades at least, starting in the 70s.

Jimmy: You.

Harold: That was a kind of a pop culture thing. And people would. There were also airbrushes if you weren't using the dot pattern process. Right. If you were just an artist that, you know, airbrushes were really. I don't know when they really became super popular, but they date back quite a bit to give you a lot of subtlety to, to color.

Michael: But yeah, I think Steranko kind of innovated a lot of that stuff.

Jimmy: His color is wildly underrated. He's an incredible colorist and with, again, using just the 64 color palette, you know.

Harold: Yeah. And can you just, for those listeners who aren't familiar, just give a little bit of who Steranko was and.

Jimmy: Well, first off, from good old Reading, Pennsylvania, a cartoonist, magician, an escape artist. He's this wild character. He's still around. You'll see him at conventions with his pompadour and high heels and shades. And his famous comics were Nick Fury, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. back in the 60s. Nick Fury. This was so long ago. Nick Fury was white. That's how long ago he was doing this.

Harold: So this is a, mostly Marvel Comics artist. Most people would know him from his Marvel comics. And his first name is Jim.

Jimmy: Jim Steranko. And the other thing is his three issue run of Captain America, the Death of Cap.

Harold: That's crazy that somebody did a three issue run of Captain America. And it's remembered for that.

Jimmy: It's still remembered. Absolutely.

Harold: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Michael: No, actually he was the first to use like psychedelic techniques in creating comic art.

Jimmy: Pop art.

Michael: Yeah. So it looked very, it looked very modern and he. But he was super experimental and he was like the big thing for a long time. So just having a Steranko cover probably boosted sales on, a lot of books.

Jimmy: Yeah. And he was one of the few guys, he always had assistants around, so he would do elaborate screen cut colors that nobody else was trying because he had an in house, basically. He worked in magazine production first, so he knew how to do some really fancy graphic design.

Harold: Yeah. Very designy in, what he did. Yeah, it's, it's cool. And, and I hope you enjoy discovering MUTTS, because there's a whole world of stuff to explore there. We're so happy that you are. Now you've got it on the list and you'll start seeing more and more of Patrick McDonald's work because he's, he's very special.

Jimmy: And get that once. Cause you will be a fan once you get into it. Get that art of MUTTS book because, my favorite, looks good. One thing I feel bad. I want to ask Patrick about those display panels he did at the title panels. And, he mentioned it briefly and then we got off topic. But he did the best, like, throwaway panels for his Sunday strip for years.

Harold: Yes.

Liz: Well, he's coming back next, fall, so.

Harold: We will ask someone.

Jimmy: Remind me.

Liz: Yeah. And we heard from friend of the show Paul Castiglia, who writes, when Patrick McDonnell told Harold he'd spend two and a half hours with him if he came to Princeton, he wasn't kidding. I once spent three hours sitting across from Patrick and his wonderful wife at a National Cartoonist Society Christmas dinner held in a restaurant overlooking the Meadowlands racetrack. While others peered out the windows to see if Bing Crosby's horse finally came in, I enjoyed delightful conversation with the McDonnnells. Patrick is definitely one of the nicest folks I've ever met. An astute and compelling conversationalist and generous listener. All these years later, I'm happy to learn he's still Good old Pat McDonnell.

Harold: well, we definitely got to experience it firsthand in that episode. If you haven't listened to the Patrick McDonnell episode, we highly, highly recommend it. It was a real honor to have him on and he was just a great conversation.

Jimmy: And hey, thanks to cartoonist Todd Webb of the poet, who hooked us up with Patrick, So that was fantastic.

Harold: Thank you, Todd. That was a longtime wish of mine and that was a dream come true. Thank you, guys.

Jimmy: You know, not to toot our own horn, but Patrick McDonnell, Ivan Brunetti, Lynn Johnston. Yeah, I mean, we're getting some, some, pretty good, cartoonists here, you know.

Harold: No, it's been amazing. And I learned from them. When we get to talk with them and just to hear their enthusiasm for something we love as well is just a real treat. And being able to share that with listeners is what an honor. Yeah.

Jimmy: And, you know, it's always funny because, like, 53 years old now, almost 54, I still have, like a fan. A fan. A truly fanboy appreciation of cartoonists and the, the, the tools they use and all the esoteric of it. And, you know, it's like, sure cannot wait to ask Patrick about inking with the fountain pen, you know, because now I'm like, oh, this is like one of these mystical secrets. He's like, oh, it's the cheapest one they have on Amazon.

Harold: No, it's cool to hear where things come from. And I would agree you're a fan boy, because only boys would say, I'm 53. Almost 54.

Jimmy: I'm 53 and a half years old.

Liz: So that's it for the mail, but I want to do a shout out to our latest supporters on Patreon, John Robinson and Jason Bullett. Thank you very much for your support.

Jimmy: Thank you, guys. We got something from the hotline. We heard from good old super listener Shaylee Robson, who says, hello, everyone. I hope that you're all having a lovely new year so far. I'm really glad to see the show going forward with diving into the characters like Snoopy. I'm curious about who's next on the old chopping block. Lol. I have a feeling it's the Van Pelt kids.

Harold: Hey, she was right astute, you know.

Jimmy: Anyway, hope the cold isn't getting you too badly. And I hope and, I look forward to the next episode of Unpacking Peanuts. Be of good cheer.

Liz: Thank you, Shaylee.

Harold: Be of Good cheer, Shaylee. Happy New Year.

Jimmy: That's fun. That she. She, called it.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Well, I wanted to do something that I knew Michael and Harold could really sink their teeth into. And I know that as such Linus fans, that was going to be a good, a good route for us to go. And if you get to see our special art for this season, it's my own copy of Catcher in the Rye, which is a nod to our suggestion that there's something Salinger-esque about the Van Pelt family.

Liz: Any news to report, Harold? Are you going to be anywhere special?

Harold: Yes, it does look like I amback at the Philly punk rock flea market. Oh, my goodness. 21st and 22nd of February. So thank you. I think it was Jeff again who came to see me last time. That was a really real treat to meet another Unpacking Peanuts person there. A fan coming in to say hello. That was a super treat. But yeah, it's a fun, fun location in this amazing Armory building. It's the only private militia in the United States. 

Liz: Are you sure? 

Jimmy: Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't.

Harold: No, the only, the only-- let me re-phrase that. The only sanctioned. Because they were grandfathered in. They were pre, pre Revolutionary war, and they have their own building and they actually rent their building out to the National Guard because they're this private entity. They have this. So it's a, it's this historic building. I mean, it doesn't date back to the 1700s, but it's like early 1900s. And they have a museum upstairs. If you just want to come out and experience something you never experienced before, other than getting to go to a punk rock flea market, you can actually go up into this museum, at least on, I think, the Saturday that it's happening. And it's like a whole world I didn't know even existed.

Liz: Great. And Jimmy, you got lots of love from the Patreon subscribers who like the conclusion to the Greg Williams. 

Jimmy: Oh, the story. Yeah. So if you're fans of the podcast and you might remember the great surrealist act of my 8 year old classmate Greg Williams, you can, find out the conclusion of that on Patreon. All right, so if you want to get in touch with us, the first thing you can do is you go over to unpackingpeanuts.com, sign up for the Great Peanuts Reread, get your one email a month that lets you know what we're talking about. You can shoot us an email. We're unpackingpeanuts@gmail.com or you can call us on our hotline, 717-219-4162. And remember, when I don't hear, I worry. So, give us a call or send us an email. All right? 

Hey, so with that out of the way, I want to add a new segment I want to, do unpacking Peanuts recommends. If anyone, no one knows knew we were going to do this before we started recording, but Michael last episode was talking about how much he enjoyed rereading Scott Pilgrim recently. And I thought it would be a good thing. We could, pick something that maybe our fan, our listeners might be interested in and, recommend it to them. Could be comics related. Doesn't have to be, but it has to be something we're into right at the moment. Does anyone have anything?

Harold: Yes.

Jimmy: All right, go for it, Harold.

Harold: You have to give me a second, though.

Jimmy: Do you want me to go first?

Harold: Yes, please.

Jimmy: I rereading for the millionth time, the Marvel Comics adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back. Well, I'm looking at the pictures for the millionth time. You can get this. I have the original from 1980, but you can get it, you know, in all kinds of reprint editions to this day. And it's drawn by one of Michael's favorite cartoonists, Al Williamson. And it's. I think it's just the best looking science fiction comic that's not Strange Attractors. I really, really love it. So that's my recommendation, Al Williamson's version of the Empire Strikes Back.

Harold: Cool. Well, I'm, currently reading a book called Master of Find and Focus on the work you were created to do by Jordan Raynor. Basically, it's telling you probably the smartest thing you can do is figure out the one thing you want to do or some little cluster of things that are all related and just focus in on that to make sure whatever you do is excellent. So that is a really interesting book and it's been making me think a lot and I'm really enjoying it. So if you are in a process of trying to kind of find where to focus your, your career or art, that's a really interesting book to read.

Jimmy: Excellent. Michael, what about you? You got anything?

Michael: I'm going to continue ranting about Scott Pilgrim. It's so original that it's stunning. I mean, he throws ideas out that are completely insane, but he makes it work. So it's at heart a love story, but suddenly, you know, he's fighting like robots, right? And I mean, it's hilarious because he's at a party and he gets attacked by this robot and the party continues. No one's paying any attention to this fight, and they're going, oh, where are the hors d'? Oeuvres? You know? Anyway, so my big question is this. How important when you're assessing the quality of a work of art is the ending? I'm talking about literature.. Because I think this is possibly the greatest graphic novel of all time, yet the ending just doesn't work. I mean, I've read it several times. It's confusing. It's. It throws in weird. You don't understand what's going on. But does that ruin it? Or did you just go, well, you know, how could you possibly end this? I mean, I couldn't figure out.

Jimmy: I think I used to be like, the ending is everything and sometimes the ending is everything. Right? Like, if you don't, if you blow the ending to the Sixth Sense, then you've blown the whole movie. Yeah. You know what I mean? There's no point. But, like, the ending of Huckleberry Finn sucks, right? I don't know. Like, I don't think. I mean, it would be better if the ending was great, but if it's great all the way to the ending, I think that's still great.

Michael: Yeah. A lot of people will say if they come away dissatisfied with the ending, that it ruins the time. Yeah. I mean, Lord of the Rings, he managed to pull it off, but he easily could have blown it because,

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: This was a stunning fact when I learned this. He got the characters all the way up Mount Doom with the ring and he didn't know what was going to happen.

Jimmy: Right.

Michael: It wasn't like he planned this from page one, because it just seems that way. He could have made a really bad decision, which ruined the book. And I wonder if that would have deterred people from reading it.

Jimmy: That's a quest thing. But you know what I, mean. Have you ever read the original ending from his drafts?

Michael: No.

Jimmy: It's crazy. They come back to the Shire and Sam leaves Frodo at his door, and Frodo pulls the ring out of his pocket and says, ain't I a stinker?

Michael: No, that was terrible.

Harold: At which point.

Jimmy: At what point did you figure it was a bit?

Michael: anyway, Scott Pilgrim. Brilliant. it's a total page turner.

Harold: Let me ask you this, Michael. So which Scott Pilgrim? There's six books. Are you reading all six as a unit or what is going on with.

Michael: Your experience with this? I got the box set.

Harold: okay.

Michael: Because when I'd heard about it for years, and I think even the library had copies of the original black and whites for a long time. I got to read this. I look at it and I can't read this. It's too ugly. The drawing's terrible.

Harold: You didn't like this? Didn't like the style when you first saw it?

Michael: I thought it was horrible. There's no way I could read it. And I think so. I have the color version and the color version is brilliant. It's really easy to tell what's going on.

Jimmy: That's what I was going to say real quick before. What Harold was going to say is, I tried to read it in black and white. Could not get through one volume of it. Got the color versions. Completely different experience. It's so fun and so much more fun.

Harold: That's interesting. So when you say the end, you mean end of book six?

Michael: The second half of book six has this long, drawn out scene which supposedly wraps up everything, but it gets really mystical.

Harold: So when you're reading it, are you reading it as, oh, that was the end of book one, that's the end of book two, and you're being satisfied. But then the series number six is like, I don't know.

Michael: No, it doesn't really break down into books. Okay. it's one book.

Liz: Yeah.

Michael: And it's just. I knew it was coming. Especially. I've seen the movie several times. Didn't work in the movie.

Harold: A guy who didn't watch the Peanuts things. How does the move, experiencing the movie affect how you read the comic or vice versa? Did you read the See the Movie first before you actually got to get into the comics?

Michael: I think it's the best adaptation of a comic as a movie. the casting is so perfect, it's crazy. Everything is perfect about it. But again, the ending is kind of like, what is going on here? and you really can't figure it out.

Harold: And there's an animated series as well, right?

Michael: Yeah. And I started watching it and it was almost too faithful to the book.

Liz: Really.

Michael: It was like exactly like the book.

Harold: And like, would you have liked it if you hadn't read the book yet? Because it was all new to you.

Michael: It was animated. No, no. actually I'm not a huge animation fan.

Jimmy: Wait, no, I'm talking about. You're talking about the live action one?

Harold: No, I'm talking about the animation.

Michael: Yeah, they redid it and they got the original cast, to do the voices.

Jimmy: Oh, I missed that.

Michael: And it's a whole series and I thought I was gonna watch it and I saw the first one, it's like, eh, I've seen this too many times.

Harold: I've read this too many times. This is a case where Brian Lee o' Malley, the guy who wrote the comic and drew the comic, also wrote the script for the. For the animation.

Michael: Yeah.

Harold: So maybe that's why it's faithful.

Michael: And it got the voices, which voices I hear in my head when I read it. Anyway, going on too long here. This is like one of the real works of genius, creative genius. Were. That's totally original. And then his follow up didn't work for me. And the comic after that, which he didn't draw, kind of liked it. But no, his life led to this one moment.

Jimmy: All right, so that's what we're recommended. Let us know if you try any of those or if you had tried them in the past. And if you like them, we'll do more next time. All right, how about we get back to 1950s comic strips. 

December 14, 1953. Lucy is sitting there playing with a doll in a little toy crib. And the voice from off panel says, Lucy, tell Linus his lunch is ready, will you? And Lucy says, all right, mother. And then Linus is sitting there just mind his own business, playing with his blocks. Lucy sneaks up behind him, very definitely sneaks up behind him. And then the third panel yells, CHOW. And then  completely shattered and is shaking there. And Lucy says, he doesn't look very hungry.

Liz: I haven't seen this one before, but.

Michael: He definitely looks like a Dan Clowes drawing. He does.

Harold: Yeah.

Liz: And this could be part of Dent watch.

Harold: I mean, 1953 newspaper. Seeing this strip, nobody is doing what Schulz is doing here. Right. Because this is incredibly cruel and she gets away with it. Right. And you see the impact that it has on this little innocent kid. And I, would think a percentage of people reading this would be quite disturbed by that. Right. They weren't expecting, as they're reading through, you know, Gasoline Alley and Blondie, and all of a sudden they come up on this strip and there's this little girl sneaking up on her little brother and just traumatizing him. I don't think that kind of humor was in the comic strips in 1953. It's a really interesting mix of. You really, really feel your concern for this little kid. Right. Seeing how he's just absolutely shattered by Lucy.

Liz: But you were probably either an older brother or a younger sister or something and you recognize that behavior.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah. To me, I don't.

Harold: I don't ever.

Jimmy: I don't think of any of this stuff as giving me empathy, extra empathy for Linus. I just think, because I don't have maybe anything to relate it to, not having an older brother or sister. I just find them, funny and true. But I don't really have that experience because if I was sitting by, if someone yelled behind me when I was playing with my blocks alone, there would have been real problems. There was an intruder in the house.

Harold: Right, Right. But. But based how he depicts Linus from.

Michael: That fourth panel, he's trapped in a house with this unpredictable creature.

Harold: It doesn't bring out any like, oh, my gosh, this is not just a little light hearted, funny thing. This is. This is a trauma.

Liz: Oh, I'm the baby of the family and I think this is hysterically funny. I love it.

Harold: Yeah. It'd be interesting for those listeners particularly, who would look up this December 14, 1953 strip and actually experience it directly. Yeah. Does everyone just say, hey, that's, that's just a funny strip or you know, what are your feelings with this strip? Does it leave you laughing?

Michael: Or if you were Linus's age, you wouldn't remember. You'd just be traumatized. Yeah.

Liz: You'd just be carrying your blanket for 35 years.

Michael: Yeah. I had the same age relation with my older sister and that, you know. We weren't super close but we got along well. But yeah, I've heard stories of her trying to push me down the stairs.

Harold: Yeah. Well, I genuinely find this one disturbing because of how he chooses and you know, was Schulz going just for a laugh or did he have what we learn more about where his sympathies lie as he plays out the strip over the next 47 years or so. But here, I mean, I think something's different is going on in Schulz's strip where he's, he's like, he's not going to let you just, just laugh once when somebody does a cruelty to somebody else. It's like something lingers, at least for me, lingers here because something is bad has happened and it's not just for the laugh, at least for me. And that's what part of what makes Peanuts so unique.

Michael: Well, the fact is, identification. I think me and Harold both identified with Linus as he grows up, his worldview and his kind of questioning, questioning reality. I don't know how important that is. I mean, is there anyone in L’il Abner you identify with?

Jimmy: Mammy Yokum.

Michael: I don't know, didn't seem to be peddling identification.

Harold: Well, I think that is what Schulz did incredibly well. that very few, I mean, I think of other characters that I really, really just deeply started to feel whatever they were going through. And I always bring up Little Orphan Annie and you know, I really, really felt for her in a way. But here, what he's doing. Yeah, I was a younger, you know, I was younger, about two years younger than my sister. And so I can relate to that. But I can't help but just look at that drawing of Linus. I don't know how I would have looked, viewed it if I hadn't been kind of in Linus's shoes. But it just, I also see myself in Lucy and I think that's a horrible thing to do.

Jimmy: Is it? And if like, you know, come on.

Harold: Again, look at Linus in this drawing at the end, that is not for humor. I mean you, I wouldn't I can't laugh at a character that is just been left in that state. That's not funny to me.

Jimmy: Okay. I think you're revealing a lot about your own personal makeup. More than the strip, I think. I mean, because, So I, I.

Harold: I would disagree with you based on where Schulz went with his whole strip and what made it so unique, because he did make you identify with the, the one who was the victim of somebody doing something that could be considered funny or light, and it actually, it really hurts the other person. He does that over and over again in ways I don't think other cartoons do.

Jimmy: Yeah, that's true. I just know that this counts.

Liz: But he also didn't make you despise Lucy. He didn't make her an, enduring villain.

Harold: Well, no, and I think that's also a great thing about Schulz. It's like, we all do cruel things, and we all are victims of cruel things. A lot of artists would have you identify with the person doing the cruel thing and laugh, and Schulz is like, no, you know, the focus is on the one who's received that. And you have to understand that that's some genuine pain has been inflicted. And so. But that's, I think that's so beautiful that Lucy is not shown as a villain. It's just, it's just a matter of fact that people do these things. And he doesn't judge Linus and Lucy. He just lets you see it and decide for yourself how you feel. Right.

Michael: Lucy was definitely a much nicer little girl than the other two little girls on this strip who were truly evil. So, yeah, compared to them, she's a saint.

Liz: Truthfully, I did not do the complete Peanuts reread, so these are new to me that the experience of why Linus needs his security blanket, this is making perfect sense to me.

Harold: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does add up. That's, where he winds up. And again, you know, it's like if Schulz was viewing an actual dynamic between his first two kids, this would be a logical thing that he would follow through based on however that played out between those two kids. And there is a kind of a through line that might suggest there is something biographical in there.

Jimmy: Oh, I think all of that's true. I just think if it were what you were saying, it would be there, would have to be another panel with Linus thinking or saying something that turns the thing on him. I think this is. I think I, I think this is just kids being silly, and one kid got a little Shaken up by it.

Harold: okay, well, that, I disagree. But definitely his sympathies, I think, are there.

Michael: Let's move on. The next strip kind of gets into Lucy's head a little bit.

Harold: Okay.

December 15th, 1953. Lucy is in her house with Patty and she says to herself, I'm so proud of myself. And now we see the two girls watching as Linus plays with his blocks and a jack in the box and a little rubber ducky. And Lucy says to Patty, I haven't done one mean thing to my baby brother today. Not one. And then Patty says to her, well, that's fine, Lucy. That's real fine. And Lucy says, there's only one thing that worries me. And then she looks over at Linus and says, the day isn't over yet.

Liz: Dun, dun, dun.

Michael: Yeah, Intense.

Harold: And again, this. This also feels different. I mean, she's got a conscience. Right.

Michael: But she can't control it.

Harold: Yeah, yeah. And she's, you know, you're right there in her dilemma.

Liz: And I think it's probably fairly common in families that older children resent new babies.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah.

Liz: that have taken over the parents attention.

Michael: Yeah. Linus gets lots of attention from his family.

Harold: Yeah. That's the thing. He does seem like he's just kind of out there all by himself. The inattentive mother, she's. She's going through the motions with Lucy, but Lucy's got a lot of leeway. That was, but that was true. I think that I, ah, don't know. You know, we talk about helicopter parents today and how adults are involved in kids lives more than, say, when I was growing up or when you guys were growing up, the sense that you were on your own but at home, I don't know if that's any different. Right. Because parents, you got working parents. There's just this vibe that maybe inside the house, it's just as wild west between siblings as it was when I was growing up.

Michael: Well, the fact is, the decision Schulz made to not have adults in the strip was the key decision. because you don't know what his relationship is. You know, maybe mom does. His mom kind of babies him and takes care of him. And Lucy's jealous. You just don't know.

Harold: Right.

Liz: Well, I'll take this moment to give my hot take on who the Van Pelt parents are. do you remember the Rachel Griffith's character in Six Feet Under? She was-- the brother and sister whose parents were both psychiatrists. I really think that the Van Pelts are both doctors. Either Psychologists or psychiatrists, and they are busy with their careers, and they leave their children to just figure it out.

Michael: I don't know. Mom's making lunch.

Liz: so he seems to be in these days. She probably had to come home in the afternoon when they came home from school.

Jimmy: No, you're missing the obvious. She has an office at the house.

Liz: Absolutely.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Well, the psychiatry booth. Do you think Lucy is basically just setting up house with the psychiatry booth and saying, this is what my mom and dad do. That tracks. Absolutely, yeah. And that they might have some. Some more. More trendy views of child raising that are a little more laissez faire or.

Liz: Whatever, you know, and they have the money to. To have all that modern furniture.

Harold: Right? Yes. Right. And they're at the end of the cul de sac.

January 1, 1954. Linus and Lucy in their house again. Linus has a little ball, and Lucy snatches it right out of his hand, says, gimme that. And then from off panel, we hear the mom saying, lucy, you didn't take Linus's. Oh, it's not a ball, it's a cookie. I'm sorry, Lucy, you didn't take Linus's cookie from him, did you? And then Lucy calls out, oh, no, mother. He offered to share it with me. To which Linus replies, ho, ho.

Michael: Which also doesn't count as Linus.

Liz: So we have ha and ho.

Jimmy: He's a master of sarcasm then. And he's still preverbal.

Harold: And this makes me think we were talking about Lil Abner. Al Capp drew that in a super popular strip. And he referred to Peanuts from, I guess, a little bit after this era as essentially monsters. He was very critical of the strip given, and he was a super satirical, over the top kind of guy, but he didn't generally dwell in the area of children. But to, him the idea that these characters, like, why are people embracing these little monsters?

Jimmy: I am glad that you and Al Capp did not have to grow up in Girardville. I think it's a sliding scale of what is and is not traumatic, depending on what you experience. 

January 11, 1954. Lucy is building with blocks. She's building a big tower. Linus comes crawling up towards her. He's watching with absolute joy as she tries to put the last block on. But as she does, the whole tower falls down. And then she looks at Linus and goes, you looked at it. 

Jimmy: You know, I can see myself in Lucy in a moment like that.

Harold: Well, she's gotten some nice new blocks.

Jimmy: That's an improvement.

Liz: And what do we think of the shape of Linus's head?

Jimmy: It's still not dented.

Liz: Really?

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: That’s hair.

Liz: Okay, all right.

Jimmy: No, still not dented, officially.

Harold: I like him like floating, floating, crawling. In the first panel, you see the little shadow under him. I love that in comics that you can do that where no one piece is touching the ground. Like he's like a Muybridge horse or something.

January 12, 1954. Linus is playing with his blocks again. The Vampels might want to invest in, like, a second toy that could possibly help that town. So he's playing with his blocks and he's getting sleepy. And as a matter of fact, he falls asleep right in front of the blocks. And Lucy goes over and she arranges the blocks very carefully so that they spell out, at least to us, the readers. Shh.

Michael: And there's Lucy being sweet.

Harold: Yeah, maybe Lucy is. She needs a creative solution to whatever she's around. And if she can't be creative, but she's finding how to be creative in a constructive way instead of a destructive way.

January 17, 1954. It's a beautiful Sunday. And baby Linus is crawling. And he says, big kids drive me crazy. Then he crawls into another room and says, well, I'll be. I can't believe it. And we see him surrounded by all the toys the big kids have left there. And he says, all these toys and nobody around. No big kids to take things away from me. Just when I'm starting to have fun. And now we do see all kinds of toys. A model, of a van, a teddy bear, a couple balls, a top, some puzzle pieces, all kinds of good looking stuff. And then he's pounding away at one of those little carpenter desk toys where you put the peg through the hole. And he says, I can't stand big kids. I can't get over it. All these toys and nobody around. And then, something's happening because off panel, Linus reacts. Oh, good grief. Here they come, big kids. And we see the whole cast come tearing through the living room. Lucy, Shermy, Charlie Brown, Patty and Violet. And then the last panel, all the toys are gone. And Linus is left alone in the living room. And he sighs to himself.

Michael: This is what's considered his first words. But he's clearly, thinking here. He's not saying this out loud.

Jimmy: Yeah, it would make more sense. But, but he is, right. I mean, I mean, he is in the way Schulz draws it anyway.

Michael: But no, I think this was a weird decision. He did the same with Snoopy, where I think he had some word balloons. I mean some, some words rather than thoughts early on. It doesn't change the strip. It's still a great strip, but it would be. Yeah, it'd be better if he wasn't speaking because it's not a baby. He's talking.

Jimmy: I love all the little toys. I love the car in the fifth panel, that little rocking horse. You know, these seems, seem to be things that were all, definitely observed in the Schulz household, I think. Yeah.

Harold: They're not all the most obvious things either.

Jimmy: Like, is that an alligator? No, it's a car upside down. I see. Okay.

Harold: I love the drawing in the lower left corner of Linus where he's kind of turned. And that again, looks like it's from observation. It's hard to describe what he's doing, but essentially he's got one shoe, shoe heel facing us as he's seated. But it looks like he's pivoted. It's just a really nicely drawn.

Liz: It's a yoga move that I can't remember the name of it.

Harold: Okay. Sideways dog, this. Yeah. Really, really, really nice drawing of Linus in that panel.

Jimmy: I like. The next panel I like because he has to fudge his own character designs. Those arms with the elbows and stuff, would only exist in that pose, you know, to cover his eyes later. It would just be straight up arms and the hand, you know.

Harold: Oh, right.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah.

Harold: His arms are kind of long in this one relative to most of the strips. Although they vary. They definitely vary from panel to panel. Just whatever he needs, whatever length Schulz needs.

Jimmy: I love the panel. The next to last panel with the all kids running in the way it's framed, that Lucy and Violet are cut off. You know, it really--

Harold: Particularly Violet.

Jimmy: gives the motion of or the idea of motion across. Like they ran through the panel so fast you couldn't get a clear picture of them.

Harold: If I drawn that panel, I wouldn't have had Violet there. But I love.

Jimmy: It's the best choice.

Harold: No one, I wouldn't have done it either. You see Violet from the back of her ear, essentially. But because she has the ponytail and everything, you know who it is, but no face.

Harold: That's, that's, that is a very creative choice. Yeah, they're filling that whole panel and from a Linus perspective, you know, they're, they're as big as it gets. Right. And a great Shermy.

Jimmy: Yeah, it is a great Shermy. Good looking cartoon all around for sure. Well, that brings us to the end of another episode. What are. What. Do you have any thoughts about this early stage of these kids development?

Michael: I kind of miss the fact that it's such a short period. We don't see. I mean, Linus is walking and talking before too long. And little baby Linus is a great character.

Jimmy: You know, if I were in charge of good old Sony, Right. And I was gonna decide what to do, I would encourage them to realize they have multiple properties here. And I think you could do a show called Little Charlie Brown, just like they did the Muppet Babies. And it could essentially be a nursery school or the neighborhood as it is, whatever. But that you would be able to do all these versions of Peanuts that predate Charlie Brown Christmas, that were never animated, that would have its own total style and feel, and you could do it on, I mean, Apple and stuff like that. It would be able to find a niche audience, I think.

Harold: Oh, yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Call it Peanuts, Featuring good young Charlie Brown.

Jimmy: Charlie Brown.

Jimmy: And then they also have a Peppermint Patty show that has a whole universe of their own characters in it. And, you know, I mean, Snoopy, like, obviously they know the main ones, but you're missing out on a really good, quality show.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: By ignoring the first nine years of this.

Liz: Sony, call me.

Jimmy: Yeah, call me. Sony, give me a ringy dingy. I got, a staffed up already. We're ready to go.

Harold: How about the Fabulous World of Faron?

Jimmy: No, it's a dog and cat thing called Faron Balanced. And they argue.

Michael: Oh, no.

Jimmy: It's like Crossfire or whatever it was called. All right, well, that brings us to the end of another episode. Thank you all for listening. It's my favorite day of the week, and I love that we get to hang out and talk about our favorite comic. 

So come back in two weeks when we talk about more Van Peltz. So if you want to reach out to us, you could do it in a couple of ways. You could call us at 717-219-4162. Leave a message or a text on our hotline. You can email us. We're unpacking peanuts@gmail.com or you can follow our show on social media. We're @UnpackPeanuts on Instagram and Threads and Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue sky and YouTube. Thanks for listening. We'll be back in two weeks. Until then, for Michael, Harold and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer. Yes, yes.

Michael: Be of good cheer.

VO: Unpacking Peanuts is copyright Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz and Liz Sumner. Produced and edited by Liz Sumner. Music by Michael Cohen. Additional voiceover by itself, Aziza Shukralla Clark. For more from the show, follow Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue sky and YouTube. For more about Jimmy, Michael and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.

Harold: again and again and again and again.