The real Linus’s real cartooning

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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Discounts
Big Fantagraphics sale and other Peanuts notes

One thing about the switch from the previous blog-by-mail system to the current one is that if there were multiple blog posts in a day, the old system would send a single digest email while the new one will send an email for each post. Not wanting to flood people’s …

General
On Peanuts and Gender

This weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the sold-out Transpose Theatricals production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown in North Hollywood, California. The production featuring an all-trans and non-binary cast was a fun one, the cast brought great talent and a enthusiasm and really filled out their characters …

General
Campaign Peanuts redux

I don’t normally just repost my blog entries… but this one seems as relevant now as when I first posted it in 2019. Only the word “many” seems dated. Of the many presidential candidates, I think Schulz only mentioned one in Peanuts. which isn’t to say that you can’t find …