Tsukuda, Kimihiko

Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan Kimihiko Tsukuda is a Japanese animator and manga artist. He began drawing his four-panel Chibikko Shinshi manga strips in the Tokyo Shimbun paper in 1956. He renamed his work as Honobono-kun on February 6, 1984 — the day after publishing his 5,000th strip. He would finish the manga on March 8, 2007 after 51 years and 15,451 strips, the longest-running newspaper manga in Japan. Tsukuda won the Manga Artist Society's grand prize in 2004 for Honobono-kun, which was known as the "Japanese Charlie Brown" for its gentle, humorous touch. Tsukuda passed away in a Tokyo hospital on June 28, 2010 due to pneumonia. He was 80. (Source: ANN)