In Peanuts there are many instances of people (and a few things!) that never appear in the strip. Adults of all stripes—parents, principals, teachers, storekeepers, and even the Red Baron—never make an appearance. Charles Schulz offered a couple of reasons for keeping the strip an adult-free zone. First and foremost, the appearance of adults would bring a certain gravitas to the proceedings: “As soon as an adult is in the strip,” Schulz remarked, “bang, the whole thing collapses. Because adults bring everything back to reality. And it just spoils it.” The other reason Schulz offered was more mundane: it was a matter of the size of the strip, “There’s just no room for adults. . . ”

Throughout the run of Peanuts, other things are also left to readers’ imaginations: the Little Red-Haired Girl’s appearance, the inside of Snoopy’s doghouse (quite well appointed from all we read!), and even Snoopy’s nemesis, that nefarious rascal the Cat Next Door. Outside the Frame exhibits strips that include (or rather, don’t include) these unseen inhabitants of the Gang’s neighborhood.

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Much of what readers interpret from cartoon art is non–verbal: they take their cues from visual iconography, a language they have learned but may not realize they know. For example, what has happened to a character with stars for eyes and how do we know that?

The Language of Lines examines this visual shorthand of comic art and its meaning. Elements of visual iconography include speed lines, sweat drops, footprints, dotted eyesight lines, sound effects, and thought balloons— specialized graphic devices that are used to represent human emotions and abstract ideas. This exhibition explores the use of visual shorthand in comic strips past and present, including Peanuts, Beetle Bailey, Pogo, Mutts, and Pearls Before Swine.

>> Press release about The Language of Lines

Co-curated by Brian Walker, co-curator of the critically-acclaimed exhibition, Masters of American Comics.

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Cartoon artists most often combine dialogue and drawings to convey their meaning. Beyond Words, on the other hand, examines those Peanuts strips in which Charles Schulz dispensed with dialogue and used only “pictures” to tell the story.

The 75 original Peanuts strips in Beyond Words are designed to complement the exhibition The Language of Lines: How Cartoonists Communicate, encouraging the reader to make sense of the strips based entirely on visual cues, iconography, and their knowledge of the Peanuts characters' personalities and relationships.

Exhibition Information