SADNESS—CHARLIE BROWN AND JON ARBUCKLE.

SADNESS—CHARLIE BROWN AND JON ARBUCKLE. The strongest memory I have of Charlie Brown is of him sitting on a curb for four identical panels of a strip. The first three are wordless; the fourth panel gives Charlie a balloon with the words, “If only McCovey had hit the ball two feet higher.” The strip appeared a couple months after the end of the 1962 World Series and referred to the last play of the seventh game. The three panels in a strip from the GARFIELD WITHOUT GARFIELD book are also identical, showing Jon with his chin supported by his hand. The first panel has a balloon with Jon saying “Do you have any unfulfilled dreams?” The other two panels show Jon, without any words. At the bottom of the page in the book is the original strip with Garfield, and his point of view, restored: Garfield appears looking at Jon in all three panels. In the second, a balloon for Garfield says, “Oh, sure.” In the third, “There’s the one about the 12-foot chocolate eclair.” I now feel that the difference between Jon and Charlie Brown is the cat. (Snoopy doesn’t perform the same function in PEANUTS, perhaps because he doesn’t enter into, or comment on, Charlie Brown’s life).