1950 is the very beginning of the Peanuts as we know them now. Schulz did cartooning before that and even put a different strip out before Peanuts called Li'l Folks, but the Peanuts emerged in 1950. Peanuts shares a lot of similarities with Li'l Folks from what I've been able to gather, but honestly I've never read Li'l Folks and I don't particularly care about it. Early peanuts is pretty different from what most people think of modern peanuts being like. First of all, it looks different. Early Peanuts is black and white, and I find the character designs to be less charming than later on. They don't look bad, they're just a lot, well, older looking. There's definitely talent here right away. I laughed (or at least chuckled) a few times and a lot of the strips made me smile. The strip comes across as a lot more interesting and adventurous than you'd imagine something from 1950 would be. From pretty early on, Charlie Brown is depressed and lonely. He calls himself depressed a few times by the time 1954 ends. Schulz was a socially nervous, dejected boy, and I think this experience is really what gives the Peanuts life. He expresses childhood in a way that conveys the innocence and newness of it all without being saccharine and superficial. There's a lot of fun, light comics, but there's a lot of strips where the characters are basically just bullying Charlie Brown. I really respect the way he shows both the joy and wonder of childhood and the cruelty

I'm not even half way through the fifties, but I would like to note a few things. Schroeder is more prominent in the comics than he is in the specials I've seen. His gimmick of really loving Beethoven is also pretty quickly established, though he talks about a wider range of classical music in the comics than in the specials. Maybe by the time the specials came around Schroeder was relatively minor in the comics? That's my hypothesis for now. Apparently Beethoven was a motif of Li'l Folks too from very briefly looking at the wikipedia page for the strip. Linus is also established pretty early and him being younger is a big focus of his character at this point, though he hasn't adopted the blanket yet. A lot of the stuff the strip is known for hasn't come in yet, but I'm excited to see them when they do. As I read more I'll write more