Charlie Brown: "Nice Guy"

We all remember Charlie Brown as the put-upon shmoe -- couldn't kick the football, snubbed by the cute little red-headed girl, getting a rock in his Halloween candy.

The truth is, though, that Charlie Brown was only getting what was coming to him. The self-centered ass deserved to have the ball pulled away, and the cute little red-haired girl was too good for him, and she knew it. And he was lucky it was just a rock!



Here are a few strips from the early years of Peanuts. If you don't have the back story, you might sympathize with ol' Chuck and his latter day woes. But as a careful reader knows, Charlie Brown may have been whining that the girls were off with the other guys instead of a "nice guy" like him, but Charlie Brown simply was not good boyfriend material.



Talk about high maintenance!

(As should be clear here, eldest Raggirl has taken a fancy to Classic Peanuts, and I have been furnishing her with the Fantagraphics volumes as she requests them. Unbeknownst to her, I am happy to buy them because I get to read them myself! She just turned 7 and is already up to Volume 3 [1955-1956]. The strips from this post and the last one are from Volume 2.)