Beautifully designed by indie artist Seth, I've gone through pages of the first volume in a bookstore and it's golden. I actually purchased the 50-54 boxset but here's the review on Volume 1: 1950-1952

Cool introduction that talks about Schulz childhood growing up in St-Paul (Minnesota) and his roots that led him to creating "Peanuts" (a title to denote little people, Schulz is not a fan of the name picked by the publisher/syndicate, he wanted "Lil' Folks', something more "dignified")

In this volume, we meet a few of the Peanuts family:
- Charlie Brown, who already wears the famous sweater with the jigsaw design (it takes a couple of month to be created)
- Patty, "man's biggest worry", Charlie likes her a lot but at the same time teases her every now and then
- Snoopy, "man's best friend"
- Shermy, smart and tall, yet Patty still lkes Charlie better
- Violent, who looks like a yet to be created Lucy and likes to cook, she may have a soft spot for Charlie Brown
- Baby Shroeder, piano virtuoso
- Lucy, younger than Charlie, troublemaker

Although the drawings are a bit different from what most people know in the mainstream, the early versions of the characters area already great (as opposed to say the Simpsons where the first season looks horrible). There's already the trademark big heads over the little bodies. As a note, Snoopy looks and acts more like an actual dog (he's on all four, very dog like)

Schulz uses very simple strokes but at the same time it is also refined and detailed. I really like the drawings

In fact there is a clear progression from 50 to 52 in the way Schulz draws his little people, they take a clearer shape and retain a fresh kids look I am finding myself enjoying more than the final style Schulz eventually settles on (I think)

There's a more extensive biography of Schulz at the end as well as an interview he did late in his career