Every long-running comic strip has a few characters who got phased out early on. The most famous example might be Lyman from Garfield, Jon's roommate and Odie's original owner, who simply disappeared one day around 1985. (Davis has occasionally joked that if you want to find Lyman, you should dig up Jon's basement.) You could also point to most of the early human characters in Bloom County, Nicole in Doonesbury getting sidelined in favor of Joanie Caucus, or the abortive Uncle Max arc in Calvin and Hobbes. Charlie Brown and Snoopy were central from the start, but the kids around them changed as Charles Schulz evolved the comic and his cartooning style.
Early on, Charlie Brown mostly hung out with his buddy Shermy and their mutual friend Patty (not Peppermint Patty), both of whom were slowly cycled out of the strip in favor of later creations like Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, and Woodstock. Schulz continued to introduce characters over time, such as Snoopy's brother Spike or Linus and Lucy's little brother Rerun, but he'd settled on what would become the most recognizable version of the comic by the '70s. That left Shermy, Patty, and a few other former stars in character limbo.
By now, they're usually reserved for crowd scenes and cameos in animated specials, the most recent of which air semi-annually on Apple TV. As part of Polygon's ongoing retrospective on the Peanuts comic strip, here are some of the best moments of Peanuts' long-time benchwarmers. Schulz based Shermy on his childhood buddy Sherman Plepler.
For the first year of Peanuts, Shermy was one of its core protagonists, and holds the distinction of being the first member of the gang to have a speaking role. However, Shermy rapidly got sidelined in favor of later, more interesting characters. His early role in Peanuts was as a straight man, without any trademark traits or talents of his own.
As Schulz got more confident in his abilities and introduced more cast members, Shermy's appearances dropped off dramatically. He was a rare sight by 1959 and had his final speaking role in June 1969. The original Patty was named after Schulz's cousin Patricia Swanson.
Like Shermy, she appears in the first-ever Peanuts strip; also like Shermy, her lack of specific quirks resulted in her being phased out over time. It took significantly longer for Patty to leave circulation, however, as Schulz quickly shifted her to a role as one of the neighborhood snobs. She and Violet would often team up to mock and bully the other kids.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
