1940s in comics appears in "All Winners Comics" #19, published by Timely Comics. "Sazae-san", by Machiko Hasegawa debuts in Fukunichi Shimbun. "Li'l Folks", the first comic strip by "Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz, debuts mainly in Schulz's hometown paper, the "St. Paul Pioneer Press", on June 22. "Li'l Folks" can almost be regarded as an embryonic version of "Peanuts", containing characters and themes which were to reappear in the later strip: a well-dressed young man with a fondness for Beethoven a la Schroeder, a dog with a striking resemblance to Snoopy, and even a boy named Charlie Brown. The Association of Comics Magazine
Peanuts strip as one panel, partly for experimentation, but also to combat the dwindling size of the comics page. Later in the '90s, Schulz abandoned the characters Patty, Violet, Pigpen and Franklin. Schulz drew the strip for nearly 50 years, with no assistants, even in the lettering and coloring process. In the late 1970s, during Schulz's negotiations with United Feature Syndicate over a new contract, syndicate president William C. Payette hired superhero comic artist Al Plastino to draw a backlog of "Peanuts" strips to hold in reserve in case Schulz left the strip. When Schulz and the syndicate reached a successful