2010-11-12
Explanation
This comic is a dark parody of the classic Peanuts scenario in which Lucy holds the football for Charlie Brown to kick, only to pull it away at the last moment. Here, Lucy actually lets Charlie Brown kick the ball. He is stunned -- "My God..." "Yes. You kicked it." -- and feels an overwhelming sense of power and achievement.
But then Lucy delivers a chilling monologue about the psychological consequences of success. Having accomplished the impossible, Charlie Brown will now find small tasks beneath him. It will cloud his focus, poison his relationships, and when he's a lonely old failure, what will haunt him most is that he wanted this -- his "little bauble of success" that made it impossible to plant the seeds of future growth. The final panel jumps 60 years into the future, showing an elderly Charlie Brown alone and muttering "Good grief!" The comic subverts the original Peanuts gag by suggesting that Lucy was actually protecting Charlie Brown all along by never letting him kick the ball, and that achieving your deepest desire can be more destructive than perpetual failure.