This Charming Charlie - via .@shawnz

Perhaps younger people don't realize it, but the world of Charlie Brown is a world of horrors. In later years, the focus of the strip shifted to Snoopy, but in its early years, the Peanuts comic strip focused on Charlie Brown, the blockhead who can't do anything right.

The world of Charlie Brown has been set to music from at least two sources - the people who created the stage play "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," and the people who conceived the long-running series of television shows featuring the Peanuts characters. However, while both of these sets of music have been memorable, they don't really capture the essence of the life of Charlie Brown.

If Peanuts author Charles Schulz had just waited a couple of decades, the life of Charlie Brown would have received the appropriate muse.

This was initially realized by Dave Flores in 1986. A popular British band was visiting San Francisco, and Flores' poster for the appearance consisted of Charlie Brown, laying on the ground, repeating the word "Why?" over and over.

Some time later, this inspired graphic designer Lauren LoPrete, who created a Tumblr blog matching the Peanuts comic strip with the lyrics of this 1980s British band. The name of this blog is This Charming Charlie. Here's a sample entry:

Brilliant. And if you don't like it, what difference does it make?

(H/T Shawn Rossi)