Today we see how Linus was “out-Chrisrmas-ed” by his femme fatale, Linus, in a 1987 Peanuts storyline.
It’s our annual Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar! Every day until Christmas Eve, you can click on the current day’s Advent calendar post, and it will display the Advent calendar with that given day’s door open, and you can see which will be the “gift” for this day! You can click here to see previous Advent calendar entries. This year, the theme is Christmas Stories in Comics! Each day will highlight a Christmas story from a notable comic strip (some strips will be featured here more than once. Some will appear as many as four or five times).
For the first day, I’ll show you the image itself…
This year’s Advent calendar design, depicting Santa Claus handing out presents to the children in the cartoon (although instead of a present for Charlie Brown, his dog, Snoopy, receives a present instead ), is Nick Benefits.He made it for the 2022 Advent Calendar, but since it also works for this year, I’m keeping it.
Here it is in calendar form…
And now Day 1 will be opened (once opened, the door will feature an image from the featured comic)…
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Who was Lydia?
As I noted in an article a while ago, depending on your definition of “major” (for the sake of that definition, I’m talking about characters notable enough to be the driving force behind a week’s worth of strips.) Snoopy, Olaf, who debuted in 1989, I think is too much of a supporting character to count, as Olaf doesn’t really understand his OWN plots, he just appears with Snoopy’s other brothers, and the Snoopy’s brother Andy, who debuted in 1994, is DEFINITELY a supporting character If you want to argue that Olaf is notable enough for him to be the last major Peaunts character to be added to the cast, then I can. at least understand your point, Rerun’s classmate, the unnamed “pigtailed girl”, is a strong possibility that ‘the last major Peanuts character will be added to the cast, but I don’t. don’t think she’s notable enough), Lydia was the last major Peanuts character added to the cast.
Debuting in June 1986, Lydia was a girl in Linus’s class that he had a crush on, but when he asked her to have lunch with her, she asked his age and she found out he was two months older what. she treats him like he’s old…
Now this is pretty normal for Schulz. It would introduce a new character, they would have interactions with one of the main characters, and then Schulz would move on to another new character. Lydia, however, had lasting power and soon began appearing frequently enough that she soon had a series of more notable stories than a number of other characters, such as Schroeder, Frankin, Pigpen, etc.
The banter between Lydia and Linus was central to her character, as she was a sort of school-aged “femme fatale”, luring Linus to burn him repeatedly. One of the first major plots involving this action took place at Christmas 1987.
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How did Lydia “get Christmas out” of Linus?
The plot began in mid-December, when Linus asks her for her address to send him a Christmas card, and she of course tells him that he is too old for her. He yells at him and he is sent to the principal’s office…
Over the next two days, their banter continues, with Lydia once again telling Linus that he’s too old for her, and Linus once again blowing up at her and being sent to the principal’s office…
This storyline also solidified one of Lydia’s main character attributes, which is that she constantly changes her name…
When Linus sends his Christmas cards, Lydia is dutifully impressed…
It’s the end of the strip week, but Charles Schulz spent MORE than a week with this one!
First, he reveals that Lydia gave Linus the wrong address, and we learn that Linus is fascinated by Lydia’s “femme fatale” behavior, which, let’s face it, is exactly how “femme fatale” behavior works. femme fatales,” right?
Lydia, who now calls herself Sarah, plays coy with Linus when he questions her about the wrong address she gave him…
And then we have the climax of the story, as Linus receives a Christmas card in the mail FROM Lydia, who, as Linus notes, “outgrew Christmas” for him…
You can certainly understand why Schulz came to like Lydia enough to use her in the strip fairly regularly during the show’s later years (although, to be frank, when I say “regularly” I only mean a few times a year in later years, Schulz tended to simply use the same main characters in the strip, with Rerun taking on such a major role in the strip in the end that Schulz even noted that Rerun eventually “took over the strip”. . the other the regulars still did not mean that it appeared with significant frequency.
If you see how Lydia is here at Christmas when it comes to cards, you can only imagine what she was like when it came time to make the VALENTINE’S DAY cards, which, of course, tend to be particularly remarkable when it comes to “flirting”. ” with your classmates.
If you have a suggestion for a good Christmas story from a daily newspaper strip, please let me know at brianc@cbr.com, and maybe I’ll use that strip as an example future for one of the others. 23 strips incoming!