When picking out items, I always look for the most nostalgic items and upon looking for a graphic novel I stumbled upon the Charles M. Schulz “Peanuts” series. Just picking up this book sent my brain back to when I would read these comics and also made me picture Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin I would watch with my family every year around Halloween time. This was a complete version of all of Schulz’s “Peanuts” comics and displayed his own commentary behind the ideas.

Snoopy’s Moon Exploration

On Snoopy’s adventure to the moon, Schultz allows the reader to infer that for one moment Snoopy is on the ground and then the next he is in outer space. This moment-to-moment closure is shown by the darkness of the background once Snoopy announces he is going up to space. Another interesting move by Schultz is to bring in more closure when showing the last four panels of Snoopy in the same spot as the beginning, this scene-to-scene example makes it seem like Snoopy never actually left his spot on top of his dog house, but instead only visioned his space adventure.

In the next comic, Snoopy is faced with his friend, Woodstock when given dinner by Charlie Brown. Since neither Snoopy nor Woodstock can actually talk, it is expected that the viewer narrates the story. Woodstock notices that snoopy is given a bowl of food and decides to antagonize Snoop. As soon as Snoop goes to eat his food, Woodstock decides to talk to him; Schultz decides to not let Woodstock have words, but instead just lets him talk in lines. This is the start of the Time Frame where the reader has full control of what Woodstock is actually saying to Snoopy. Snoopy reacts to Woodstock in a disgusted way because of what he is shouting to him, but the story is

Woodstock annoying Snoopy

really just based on the reader’s interpretation. The last panel states that Woodstock was talking about worms, but that may just be the shape of the text that was coming out in Woodstock’s speech bubbles.