Overview

• The strip debuted on October 2, 1950 and grew into one of the most successful comic features worldwide.
• Anniversary coverage underscores persistent themes of bullying, depression and self‑doubt beneath the gag‑strip surface.
• Comics specialist Jens Balzer argues the early strips mirror rising competition and social isolation in 1950s America, with children treating each other with bleak brutality.
• Schulz’s military service, including being present at Dachau’s liberation, shaped a lifelong focus on loneliness, according to remarks cited by Balzer.
• Schulz said some of his strongest work followed his painful separation from his first wife, and critics note how exaggeration and the unreal turn distress into comforting laughter.