A hundred million years ago on my Facebook page, I spent two years scanning a Peanuts strip from that day (you know, like it it was February 25, I'd scour my Peanuts books & find a strip I liked from that day) & post it. I did it every other day because I knew I couldn't do it daily. I also, when I started, hadn't got all the Fantagraphics Peanuts reissues.
Anyway, here's the strip from February 25, 1959, posted to Facebook eleven years ago. It's a sentiment that would actually be echoed later by Linus. It also features the original Patty, whom some fans love more than Peppermint Patty, who wouldn't appear in the strip until 1966.
When I was first reading the reissues, I became a little obsessed with characters who were slowly phased out by Peanuts creator Charles Schulz over time. Wikipedia tells us, "Although the original Patty would make cameo appearances throughout the run of Peanuts, she had ceased being a featured character by about 1975. She continued to make cameo or background appearances until the early 1990s. Her last appearance was a rerun of a 1992 strip which was republished on November 27, 1997." I guess it's better than what happened to Shermy.
As for me, I have a more holistic love of the strip. While I am fucking obsessed with those early comics, I grew up in the 1970s reading Peanuts in the actual daily paper, & have real memories about certain storylines & stand-alone strips. So I can't dismiss middle-period Schulz.
Anyway, that's enough about Patty. I just went down a rabbit hole & read the last year of Peanuts strips. I know it's two decades ago, & I know he had cancer, but I still find Charles Schulz's death at 77 at too fucking young. He should've had at least another decade of Peanuts strips in him.
Insert pathetic Charlie Brown sigh here.
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