Pig-Pen

Pig-Pen is a character in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. Pig-Pen's gimmick is that he is always dirty. He is best-known for the cloud of dirt and dust that follows him wherever he goes. When he takes a deep breath such as to sing, the dust rises briefly around him. He sometimes refers to it somewhat nobly as the dust of ancient civilizations. He cannot and will not wash it off for more than the briefest of periods. In fact, he is referred to in an early strip as the only person who can get dirty from walking down the street. Nevertheless, on rare occasions he has very briefly appeared clean, and hence unrecognizable, in the strip. Once this was in order to impress Violet, of whom he was a bit fond. One night after washing and dressing in clean clothes, as Charlie Brown watched, Pig-Pen stepped outside and almost instantaneously became dirty and disheveled, and noted, "You know what I am? I'm a dust magnet!" At one point, Pig-Pen decided it was important to have...