Like many Peanuts fans, I knew that the character of Linus was named after Linus Maurer, who worked at Art Instruction alongside Schulz. Like seemingly fewer fans, I knew that Maurer himself had been a syndicated cartoonist… but for some reason I never saw any of his strip before today. His series, which ran variously as “Old Harrigan” and “Old Harrigan of Sleepy Eye”, launched in early 1955 and ran into mid 1958. It was a kid strip, and at least in the samples I’ve looked at, it was a “never see adults” strip, like Peanuts itrself.
This strip was the very first example that I came across:
…and suddenly, the April 30, 1957 Peanuts strip had a lot more context for me!
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