Comic strips

Never Was Comic Strips – Hagemeyer by Schulz

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D. D. Degg July 13, 2019 1 minute 0 comments

Charles Schulz is Peanuts and Peanuts is Charles Schulz.

But Schulz did a few more series than Peanuts. There was the Peanuts precursor Li’l Folks in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Young Pillars mostly for the Church of God magazine Youth, the very early Just Keep Laughing.. for Topix Comics, a series of Saturday Evening Post cartoons, and his only other syndicated feature It’s Only a Game.

More information about those can be read at this page.

Not on that page is Hagemeyer, a Charles Schulz comic strip that never was.

Sometime during the 1950s Charles Schulz used his regular pre-fabbed four-panel Peanuts layout to experiment with another comic strip.

Jeet Heer explains that

in the 1950s Charles Schulz experimented with developing an adult comic strip about the gender dynamics among blue color workers when a woman becomes boss of the stock room.

Jeet continues:

This strip shows that early on Schulz felt he was being constrained by kid-focus of “Peanuts.” Of course, what he discovered was he could bring in all the adult concerns he wanted (depression, unrequited love) & still use kid characters.

Not uncommon for Schulz, “Hagemeyer” was a name from his past.

Later a less hardened Hagemeyer would become a part of the Peanuts strip.

Remember Linus’ favorite teacher Miss Othmar?

She would disappoint Linus by taking a leave of absence to get married.

But Miss Othmar would return, now as Mrs. Hagemeyer.

Many years later Mrs. Hagemeyer would be Marcie’s music teacher.

Sources:

The primary source for the Hagemeyer strips is Chip Kidd’s Only What’s Necessary book

More of Jeet Heer‘s Hagemeyer analysis can be read at a thread on his Twitter page.

The top Hagemeyer strip comes from Strange Eggs.

The bottom Hagemeyer two-fer comes via CNN.

The Elmer and Margaret Hagemeyer relationship item from Newspapers.com.

The Peanuts strips are nicked off of GoComics.

A look at Linus’ infatuation with Miss Othmar can be had at Mike’s Comic Strip of the Day.