Peanuts #4
Peanuts #4 (Dell, Feb.–Apr. 1960) marks the launch of the Peanuts characters' own standalone comic-book title — numbered #4 to acknowledge the three Dell Four Color try-out issues that preceded it — giving Charlie Brown and his neighborhood their first dedicated monthly home on newsstands. The issue introduces infant Sally Brown into comic-book form, bringing the character (who had debuted in the newspaper strip only in August 1959) to readers in a new medium within months of her strip debut, and cementing her bond with Snoopy as an early storytelling throughline. As the first issue produced almost entirely without Charles Schulz's direct involvement in the interiors, it also represents a turning point in how licensed comic-book publishing worked: Schulz supplied a signed cover, while trusted colleagues translated his world into all-new page-count stories for a mass newsstand audience.
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Dell Publishing launched the standalone Peanuts title with this issue — numbered #4 to fold the three prior Dell Four Color specials (#878, #969, #1015) into a continuous sequence — cover-dated February–April 1960. Interior stories were crafted by Dale Hale and Anthony (Tony) Pocrnich, both former Art Instruction Schools colleagues whom Schulz had personally selected after Jim Sasseville departed in late 1958; Schulz himself contributed only the signed cover illustration and had no hand in the interior scripts or art. The issue also carried a Sluggo backup story written by John Stanley, the celebrated Little Lulu scribe, who contributed such backups throughout the early run of the series. According to editor's notes published in Hogan's Alley, Hale's work on the Peanuts comic book ended around 1960 when he relocated, meaning this inaugural issue sits at or very near the end of his tenure — and the beginning of a handoff to anonymous Dell house writers and artists.
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- First issue of the standalone Dell Peanuts title, numbered #4 in acknowledgment of three prior Dell Four Color issues (#878, #969, #1015) that Dell counted as #1–#3.
- Cover dated February–April 1960; published by Dell (Western Publishing).
- Cover art drawn and signed by Charles M. Schulz — his sole direct contribution to the issue; all interior stories were written and drawn by ghost artists.
- Interior Peanuts stories produced by Dale Hale and Anthony (Tony) Pocrnich, both former Art Instruction Schools colleagues hand-picked by Schulz.
- Features a story in which Snoopy tends to and protects infant Sally Brown, representing Sally's early comic-book appearances — Sally had only debuted in the Peanuts newspaper strip on August 23, 1959, just months before this issue's publication.
- Includes a Sluggo backup story written by John Stanley, the writer best known for his celebrated run on Dell's Little Lulu.
- The series ran from this issue through Peanuts #13 (May–July 1962), all with Schulz-signed covers and ghost-produced interiors.
- The entire Dell Peanuts run — including this issue — was collected for the first time in the Peanuts Dell Archive hardcover published by KaBOOM! (BOOM! Studios) in 2018; Gold Key later reprinted this specific issue as part of its four-issue Peanuts reprint series (1963–64).
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