2011-12-07
Explanation
This comic is a Peanuts parody featuring Charlie Brown and Schroeder. Charlie Brown reveals that the Little Red-Haired Girl -- his legendary, never-seen crush -- has finally kissed him, but he discovered she has a blemish on her neck. When Schroeder asks "So?", Charlie Brown delivers an unexpectedly profound and melancholic monologue: by watching her from a distance for so long, she went "from a person to an archetype to an idea," becoming a goddess-like ideal in his mind. A flaw in that ideal is devastating -- "and what good is a god with a zit?"
Charlie Brown then asks Schroeder to play Chopin, saying that Chopin "died before I could know him, and so he remains beautiful" -- unlike the now-humanized Red-Haired Girl. He wants to let his "idle hope die" in the music, because "remembering dead hope is easier than keeping it alive." The comic is a surprisingly dark and literary take on Charlie Brown's character, exploring how idealization of another person is really about the worshipper's need for perfection, and how encountering reality can be more painful than perpetual longing.