Editing Peanuts (section)

===1950s===
<!-- FAIR USE of First Peanuts comic.png: see image description page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First Peanuts comic.png for rationale -->
[[File:First Peanuts comic.png|thumb|upright=2.25|The first ''Peanuts'' strip from October 2, 1950 with (left to right) Charlie Brown, Shermy, and Patty]]

The strip began as a [[Daily comic strip|daily strip]] on October 2, 1950, in seven newspapers: the ''[[Star Tribune|Minneapolis Star]]'', a hometown newspaper of Schulz (page 37, along with a short article); ''[[The Washington Post]]''; ''[[Chicago Tribune]]''; ''[[The Denver Post]]''; ''[[The Seattle Times]]''; and two newspapers in [[Pennsylvania]], ''Evening Chronicle'' ([[Allentown, Pennsylvania|Allentown]]) and ''Globe-Times'' ([[Bethlehem, Pennsylvania|Bethlehem]]).{{sfn|Michaelis |2007|p=220}} The first strip was four panels long and showed [[Charlie Brown]] walking by two other young children, [[Shermy]] and [[Patty (Peanuts)|Patty]]. Shermy lauds Charlie Brown as he walks by, but then tells Patty how he hates him in the final panel. [[Snoopy]] was also an early character in the strip, first appearing in the third strip, which ran on October 4.<ref>{{cite comic|cartoonist= [[Charles Schulz|Schulz, Charles]]|strip=Peanuts|date=October 4, 1950|syndicate=United Feature Syndicate}}</ref> Its first [[Sunday strip]] appeared January 6, 1952, in the half-page format, which was the only complete format for the entire life of the Sunday strip. Most of the other characters that eventually became regulars of the strip did not appear until later: [[Violet (Peanuts)|Violet]] (February 1951), [[Schroeder (Peanuts)|Schroeder]] (May 1951), [[Lucy van Pelt|Lucy]] (March 1952), [[Linus van Pelt|Linus]] (September 1952), [[Pig-Pen]] (July 1954), [[Sally Brown|Sally]] (August 1959), [[Frieda (Peanuts)|Frieda]] (March 1961), [[Peppermint Patty|"Peppermint" Patty]] (August 1966), [[Franklin (Peanuts)|Franklin]] (July 1968), [[Woodstock (Peanuts)|Woodstock]] (introduced March 1966, officially named June 1970), [[Marcie]] (July 1971), and [[Rerun van Pelt|Rerun]] (March 1973).

Schulz decided to produce all aspects of the strip himself from the script to the finished art and lettering. Schulz did, however, hire help to produce the comic book adaptations of ''Peanuts''.<ref>{{cite magazine|author=Nat Gertler |author-link=Nat Gertler |title=Dale Hale and the 'Peanuts' Comic Book: The Interview | magazine=Hogan's Alley |issue=8 |date=October 2000 |publisher=Cartoonician.com}} Republished in ''[http://cartoonician.com/dale-hale-and-the-peanuts-comic-book-the-interview/ Hogan's Alley blog] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150915010228/http://cartoonician.com/dale-hale-and-the-peanuts-comic-book-the-interview/ |date=September 15, 2015 }}'' by Tom Heintjes, May 17, 2015.</ref> Thus, the strip was able to be presented with a unified tone, and Schulz was able to employ a minimalistic style. Backgrounds were generally not used, and when they were, Schulz's frazzled lines imbued them with a fraught, psychological appearance. This style has been described by art critic John Carlin as forcing "its readers to focus on subtle nuances rather than broad actions or sharp transitions."<ref name="Masters">''Masters of American Comics'' John Carlin Yale University Press 2005</ref> Schulz held this belief all his life, reaffirming in 1994 the importance of crafting the strip himself: "This is not a crazy business about slinging ink. This is a deadly serious business."<ref>{{cite web |author=Tom Heintjes |url=http://cartoonician.com/charles-m-schulz-on-cartooning/ |title=Charles M. Schulz on Cartooning &#124; Hogan's Alley |publisher=Cartoonician.com |date=May 17, 2015 |access-date=May 21, 2015 |archive-date=June 3, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150603035016/http://cartoonician.com/charles-m-schulz-on-cartooning/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

While the strip in its early years resembles its later form, there are significant differences. The art was cleaner, sleeker, and simpler, with thicker lines and short, squat characters. For example, in these early strips, Charlie Brown's famous round head is closer to the shape of an American football or [[Rugby union ball|rugby football]]. Most of the kids were initially fairly round-headed. As another example, all the characters (except Charlie Brown) had their mouths longer and had smaller eyes when they looked sideways. <!--need facts for the entire paragraph-->