"I haven't felt like myself for years now."

April 14, 2021 7:46 AM

"Good ol' Charlie B" is a sad-and-sweet, talky comic by Marina Kittaka taking place years after the events of Peanuts: "half essay, half tribute to visiting old friends". A text-only version is available. "Yeah. I've been having a hard time, just. Figuring out where to go from here. Trying to piece something together that actually... feels like a life." Kittaka has also written about art and community and co-option, noting, "to practice my philosophy I must learn to be okay with people not getting it, to stop fighting to stay legible and correct-feeling in everybody's mind."
posted by brainwane (44 comments total)

From the text version:

Charlie is depicted with long hair in a bun and a cute, femme outfit, including a jacket with the phrase "Gay Blockhead" embroidered on the back. Instead of the iconic zig-zag t-shirt, Charlie wears a zig-zag choker.

Also, Charlie looks happier.
posted by otherchaz at 8:10 AM on April 14, 2021 [15 favorites]

..."How I hate them !"

(reference...)

[I like this comic, though. Lovely.]
posted by chavenet at 8:21 AM on April 14, 2021 [5 favorites]

Oh, this is so great!

Linus on "adulting is hard:"
"...that phrase bothers me because we have this static vision of adulthood that presupposes access to, like, a functional social infrastructure as opposed to a strip-mined husk painted in stars and stripes."
posted by Don Pepino at 8:22 AM on April 14, 2021 [26 favorites]

Charlie is depicted with long hair in a bun and a cute, femme outfit, including a jacket with the phrase "Gay Blockhead" embroidered on the back. Instead of the iconic zig-zag t-shirt, Charlie wears a zig-zag choker.

I really love that that's just "there" and not really explained or discussed in the rest of the comic (possible subtext, as in Charlie really wants to live now, but still plain and simple). Sort of an "oh, of course" moment.
posted by dlugoczaj at 8:22 AM on April 14, 2021 [6 favorites]

Oh good grief I'm crying at the Peanuts gang now!

This is lovely! :)
posted by riverlife at 8:25 AM on April 14, 2021 [3 favorites]

This was lovely, both links. Thank you.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 8:25 AM on April 14, 2021

I guess Snoopy is dead by the time of the comic. Woodstock too.
posted by thelonius at 9:01 AM on April 14, 2021 [5 favorites]

I like this — a lot, but isn’t she running into any lookalike problems with Charles Schulz?
posted by lometogo at 9:02 AM on April 14, 2021

That was great, even before Charlie's reveal. Linus' musings on his essential nature and what that would mean for a real person reminds me of this Bart Simpson/Peter Griffin/Bobby Hill as adults thing, even though it is very, very different. And Charlie is in Chicago!
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:05 AM on April 14, 2021 [22 favorites]

This was really moving. Thanks for the post.
posted by Rinku at 9:22 AM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

I just feel like I've spent decades in stasis and every year it makes less and less sense for me to exist. I'm not even sure what I was expecting? That one day I'd just wake up with a house, a family, a decent job? Gentle trombone voice emanating from my post-physical body...

Gods, I feel this. In my bones I feel this.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:27 AM on April 14, 2021 [14 favorites]

Woodstock too.

why u do this
posted by mhoye at 9:57 AM on April 14, 2021 [20 favorites]

Don't worry, they're alive and well. Linus and Charlie are not turned into incorporeal trombones and are still childsize and unaged physically, therefore Snoopy is same age, too, and still flying missions and kitting out his awesome crib. And Woodstock is a damn bird, hello. Birds live forever.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:03 AM on April 14, 2021 [11 favorites]

And Woodstock is a damn bird, hello. Birds live forever.

That's actually a good point. If he's got any parrot or cockatoo blood he could very well be tooting along still.
posted by dlugoczaj at 10:09 AM on April 14, 2021 [7 favorites]

Snoopy is flying that doghouse through an endless, perfectly clear sky, the Red Baron nowhere to be seen.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:25 AM on April 14, 2021 [2 favorites]

GAY BLOCKHEAD is an excellent slogan, and I’m sad that it’s decidedly one I can’t use.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:27 AM on April 14, 2021 [5 favorites]

gold. best of mefi.
posted by j_curiouser at 10:46 AM on April 14, 2021 [4 favorites]

It's worthwhile to compare the gentler theme of this "Peanuts getting older"with Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead which came out in 2004 -- that play depicts a much more volatile series of teenage/young adult life adjustments.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 11:04 AM on April 14, 2021 [2 favorites]

It's worthwhile to compare the gentler theme of this "Peanuts getting older"with Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead which came out in 2004 -- that play depicts a much more volatile series of teenage/young adult life adjustments.

To say nothing of MASTABA SNOOPY! (previously, but game link is broken.)
posted by Going To Maine at 11:28 AM on April 14, 2021 [2 favorites]

Anyway, this is a great strip! Excellent find.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:28 AM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

I wonder if Sally is still in love with Linus.
posted by JanetLand at 12:10 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is the best Peanuts-as-adults comic I've seen. I liked it most because it suprises, but it backs up its surprises. It's easy to turn Charlie into an angst-ridden adult nebbish. It's bold to turn Linus into one. But yeah, I can see Linus's blanket, unresolved family issues, and early popularity becoming problems later on.

And the reinterpretation of Charlie is brilliant. He did seem to be striving for years at performing masculinity. It must have been a huge relief to stop doing that.
posted by zompist at 1:58 PM on April 14, 2021 [10 favorites]

I liked it, but even as a trans person the reveal of Charlie being trans didn't quite sit right with me. In the original strip we got to know the kid very well, we were privy to a lot of his internal monologues, and I never felt any ping of trans recognition there. He was neurotic and gentle, not stereotypically "butch," but he was certainly a boy. This feels kind of like... wimpy boy erasure?

Now Peppermint Patty and/or Marcie, I could totally see them being husbands now. I could even see Schroeder or Linus as trans. Like, there was nothing obviously trans about them in the original strip, but it wouldn't feel totally out of character. But Charlie? It always seemed far more likely that he was going to end up unhappily married to Lucy, forever worrying about his kids and his job, nursing an ulcer and taking melancholy walks around the old baseball field on wintry afternoons. He was always kind of a middle-aged man.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:04 PM on April 14, 2021 [13 favorites]

It is curious, and perhaps a bit optimistic that some feel that Woodstock _can_ die, much less that he is not a herald of the Great Old Ones.

" '' ' ''' '''", indeed, Woodstock. Ia! IA! " '' ' ''' '''"!
posted by delfin at 2:22 PM on April 14, 2021 [6 favorites]

I liked it, but even as a trans person the reveal of Charlie being trans didn't quite sit right with me.

I agree with this assessment and am choosing instead to read this Charlie as a femme-y cis gay man which alleviates some pressure. I'm not sure I could ever really envision a Charlie Brown of any gender being punk enough to announce on the back of their denim jacket that they're a "Gay Blockhead" though
posted by bookwo3107 at 2:29 PM on April 14, 2021 [5 favorites]

Ursula Hitler, I'm not reading Charlie as trans at all, just hipstery. He's got a man-bun and the same single curly hair in front he's always had. If his neckline is a little scoopy, is that so odd in the big city? Moreover, he's labeled himself as gay and gotten awfully snuggly with Linus, who is also presenting as a cis male.
posted by darksasami at 2:31 PM on April 14, 2021

I am tempted to email this link to my therapist to confirm that this accurately represents my entire session yesterday
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:55 PM on April 14, 2021 [6 favorites]

Mod note: Swapped out the "trans" tag for "queer" at the poster's request.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:07 PM on April 14, 2021 [5 favorites]

I liked it, but even as a trans person the reveal of Charlie being trans didn't quite sit right with me.

Charlie's gender identity and trans status are never disclosed, either in the comic or in the text version. So I don't think you can say Charlie was "revealed" to be trans.

He was neurotic and gentle, not stereotypically "butch," but he was certainly a boy. This feels kind of like... wimpy boy erasure?

Hi, neurotic, gentle, former wimpy "boy" who identified with Charlie Brown here. I sure didn't feel erased.

Moreover, he's labeled himself as gay

Or, perhaps Charlie, who always pined after the little red-haired girl, is a lesbian.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 3:11 PM on April 14, 2021 [7 favorites]

In conclusion, Charlie Brown’s gender is a land of contrasts.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:41 PM on April 14, 2021 [4 favorites]

OK, maybe I was wrong when I read Charlie as trans. The character here looks VERY femme, with the neckline and the choker and the pink jammies and stuff, and my understanding is that Kittika is trans, but maybe I was assuming too much. I missed the text-only version, and the wording there is ambiguous in a way that feels like it may be deliberate. (Kittika totally avoids pronouns for the character. Not even a "they.") So, I dunno.

I sure didn't feel erased.

What I meant by "wimpy boy erasure" was that Charlie Brown was always depicted as a good-hearted, underdog schlimazel of a cishet boy, pining over the little redhead girl and failing to kick the football, and I think there's value in that. It was a kind of loser-y boy-ness that hadn't really been depicted before. (In hindsight it's kind of surprising that we never see him bullied, with the arguable exception of Lucy socking him around sometimes, and he's actually the coach of the baseball team instead of the last kid picked. Maybe he became coach because otherwise he knew he'd never get picked to play!)

Also, J.K. Seazer, if I'm understanding correctly, we're both trans. If we identify with the adult Charlie depicted here, I think it kind of proves my point. This is a Charlie who seems to have followed a path similar to ours, rather than a path followed by wimpy cishet boys like Charlie Brown. (But I think you raise a fair point that the "gay blockhead" thing may mean that grown-up Charlie is a lesbian.)

Again, I liked the strip, and I'm not saying any of this is wrong. Just that, to me, this Charlie doesn't feel like a very natural outgrowth of the Charlie from the strip.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:24 PM on April 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

And Woodstock is a damn bird, hello. Birds live forever.

I was in my twenties when I figured out that my grandmother’s parakeet Mr. Bird was actually a long series of identical parakeets named Mr. Bird.

I was today years old when I started to wonder if they were all male parakeets.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:33 PM on April 14, 2021 [9 favorites]

the wording there is ambiguous in a way that feels like it may be deliberate

Yes, I believe that the author deliberately made Charlie's self-identification ambiguous to allow for multiple interpretations.

If we identify with the adult Charlie depicted here

No, I'm saying I identified with Charlie Brown as seen in the original Peanuts strips, and therefore thought it was a natural possible future for Charlie Brown to turn out as a trans woman.

You can have your headcanon, but you can argue for it without arguing against anybody else's.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 4:40 PM on April 14, 2021 [7 favorites]

I'm a northeasterner, so I'm talking out of my trombone sound, but I read a strong subtext here about Midwesternness. The original strip is equal parts revolutionary and square - we have children with neuroses and wise beyond their years, but reciting Luke and representing the core of the core of the core of postwar American suburbanism. But here they find Chicago, and find that their cultural inheritance was a sham. And yet they also find that those tensions were always there -- a callback to the original subversiveness (or at least ambiguity) of the strip. Linus was always a little too erudite to fully fit in, Charlie a little too neurotic, Lucy a little too machiavellian, etc.

So in a way, there's a relocation of the heart of the Peanuts. Maybe it was always Chicago, and not GENERIC_MINNESOTA_SUBURB at the center.
posted by condour75 at 4:59 PM on April 14, 2021 [10 favorites]

Ideefixe, this is transformative art which is a conversation/exploration of the original art and is perfectly valid in itself. If you only accept utterly original art, you’re going to have a very narrow cannon to draw on.

I like the limited colour washes and the sparse scratch style, like the world is more vivid and uncertain.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:09 PM on April 14, 2021 [3 favorites]

The internet consensus is Charlie Brown is a preteen in the comics. Which at my age was when my dad was despairing of my inability to sports, I didn't have a strongly gendered upbringing, and in many ways, I was a slow developer, sheltered kid. I don't recall any thoughts about my own gender until about 12, when the whole puberty thing started and people were talking about me growing into a man. (The horror... The horror...)

But yeah, I too assumed Charlie is trans, though I agree it's deliberately written vague. I think it's the dots that seem to be earrings that really cement it for me.
posted by Jacen at 8:54 PM on April 14, 2021

I'm saying I identified with Charlie Brown as seen in the original Peanuts strips, and therefore thought it was a natural possible future for Charlie Brown to turn out as a trans woman.

I had worry and melancholy in common with Charlie Brown, but plenty of people have those problems without being trans. Just because I could relate to his neurosis, I didn't assume that he was trans like me. Even as an adult, I don't see any trans subtext in the character. I think Kittika is using these characters to say some things about life, and what she's saying has value. But I think that what she's doing here is more like a re-imagining than a sequel. I can believe in her idea of Charlie Brown without believing that this is the same kid from the comics and TV specials.

You can have your headcanon, but you can argue for it without arguing against anybody else's.

I don't think it's only my "headcanon" that Charlie Brown was a cishet boy. Do you think Charles M. Schulz ever meant us to read Charlie Brown as trans? I doubt it. There's a strip where Charlie Brown talks about how he likes going to the barber with his dad, and he has a big smile as he recounts how the barber always asks him if he needs a shave. It feels good to him, being treated like a little man. It's one of the few things he's not neurotic about.

I'm gonna stop following this thread. I don't think things have gotten really bad yet, but I feel a tension in the air and I want to end my participation before things get any worse.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 10:46 PM on April 14, 2021 [2 favorites]

I think part of the problem here is that a lot of people who consider themselves Peanuts fans have not read full decades of the comic's run. I am basically a scholar of 50s and 60s Peanuts, but I've barely touched the 70s and 80s. The characters, storytelling, and style changed so much in the later years.

I don't think there are indications in the text of Peanuts that Charlie Brown is anything other than a cis boy. However, there are many indications both from the way he talks about himself and the way his peers react to him that his performance of masculinity is not always sufficient to the moment. Most kids occasionally fuck up performance of their assigned gender, though - I wouldn't read too much into that.

All that said: Peppermint Patty is pretty unambiguously queer, and she clearly took some sort of a shine to Charlie Brown. Maybe she saw something in him none of the rest of us did. I was always a little confused by why this obvious butch was flirting so hard with "Chuck"...huh.
posted by potrzebie at 11:24 PM on April 14, 2021

I don't think it's only my "headcanon" that Charlie Brown was a cishet boy. Do you think Charles M. Schulz ever meant us to read Charlie Brown as trans? I doubt it.

Well... this just isn't the way headcanons work, particularly queer headcanons. Nobody is seriously trying to argue that Charles Schulz actually intended for Charlie Brown to be a trans girl. But if that were the standard by which we must always interpret fictional characters, then systemic queerphobia means that queer people basically have to resign themselves to having few, if any, of their favorite characters reflect an important aspect of their lived experience, and that's not fun. No one is saying that you or anyone else must interpret Charlie Brown as a trans girl, in all situations and contexts. But at the same time, neither I nor anyone else must always interpret Charlie Brown as a cis boy. Both, as well as any other interpretations, are acceptable and worthy. We're just trying to enjoy ourselves here.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 12:28 AM on April 15, 2021 [12 favorites]

but I've barely touched the 70s and 80s.

You've missed nothing. Schulz ran out of ideas in 1972, and everything after that was just repetition. Including "Rerun," whom he named as a dig at the problem.

I was always a little confused by why this obvious butch was flirting so hard with "Chuck"...huh.

It think it was, novel at the time, a way to show people that hey, even tomboys can have girly feelings sometimes! Which is true.
posted by Melismata at 9:39 AM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

It think it was, novel at the time, a way to show people that hey, even tomboys can have girly feelings sometimes! Which is true.

Yes, though I'd never tell anyone to stop reading Peppermint Patty as queer, and I think that is definitely IN there...as a girl-child who was extremely uncomfortable performing femininity but also rapidly becoming aware that I was super relentlessly straight and definitely cis? Peppermint Patty was my Peanuts avatar, right down to the sandals. That movie where she becomes a figure skater and has to uncomfortably femme herself? That hit hard.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:34 AM on April 15, 2021 [6 favorites]

Maybe Charlie Brown is gay, not trans, and that "Gay Blockhead" jacket belongs to his boyfriend.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:41 AM on April 15, 2021

(I really wish there were more of these strips. What Linus is saying is helpful to me to hear, and I would like several more helpings, please.)
posted by wenestvedt at 10:43 AM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

Nobody is seriously trying to argue that Charles Schulz actually intended for Charlie Brown to be a trans girl.

It think it was, novel at the time, a way to show people that hey, even tomboys can have girly feelings sometimes! Which is true.

Yes, the true fight is arguing that Charles Schulz 100% for certain intended for Peppermint Patty to be read as a butch lesbian and not just a tomboy. (If you can find me a primary source on this, I would read it excitedly.)
posted by Going To Maine at 3:07 PM on April 15, 2021 [1 favorite]