Complete Peanuts, Volume 3: 1955-1956 Book

Still a step behind of their most known version.


FUSS-BUDGETS UNCHAINED

This is the third volume of the Complete Peanuts, from 1955 and reaching until 1956.

The deal about Lucy & Linues is still odd, in the sense of the memories of most people (me included) where Lucy and Linus should be of an age contemporary with Charlies Brown and in the same class, but nope, Lucy still is younger than Charlis Brown, she's in kindergarten, while Charlie Brown already in school's first grade, meanwhile Linus is even younger than Lucy.

So, I guess that Superboy Prime still hasn't punched the reality to changed this odd situation to make it as most people we remember the comic strip.

Snoopy has a facet of doing imitations during the volume, where the sky is the limit to his resourceful skills of performing imitations.

There is a disturbing recurring gag about Linus in this third volumen where he "shoots" everybody with his finger, saying "bang", that obviously is something that many kids do, and I'm sure that Charles Schultz hadn't any bad intention about it, but just portraiting a normal facet in children, however, there is a strip where things got out of control, where Linus put his finger in the head of Snoopy, telling "bang" and saying that it was better to put him out of his misery…

…oooookay.

Quite disturbing in what should be an innocent comic strip for the family!

Sure, Snoopy didn't ger hurt, it was a finger, not a real gun, but the scene and the dialogue, I think turned into a too dark path.

Actually, after using a lot that recurring gag for Linus, after that particular strip, the gag changed into sounds of other "weapons" like arrow and stuff, since while the 50s wasn't like nowadays where society reached the writers right away making known their thinking about the published material, but I have no doubt that some letter should reach soon enough to Schultz making him see how innapropiate was that particular strip (that I thanked it was censored out of the collection, since while it was disturbing, you shouldn't erase history or you'll be doomed to repeat it).


DAVY CROCKETT V. BEETHOVEN: DAWN OF CHILDHOOD

Shermy, one of the founding characters of the comic strip (but doomed to dissapear eventually) is still around but he's being used a lot less, and since Linus is still too young, it falls into Schroeder in playing the role of "best buddy" for good ol' Charlie Brown.

They shared arguments in this volume, about who was cooler, if Davy Crockett or Beethoven, the childhood's heroes of each of them.

Along with that, Schroeder has to deal the relentless approaches by Lucy trying to get his attention; meanwhile Charlie Brown met his insidious nemesis, the kite-eating tree!

Moreover, Charlie Brown gets his first iconic pranks by Lucy involving the football kick and the pile of leaves.