Current status / schedule Concluded Genre(s) Humor, Promotional End date 1956 | Launch date 1 April 1948 | |
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Publishers Dell Publishing, Western Publishing, Hermes Press Similar Pogo, Fritzi Ritz, Star Hawks, Male Call, Brenda Starr - Re | ||
The Adventures of Peter Wheat is the title and central character of an American comic book series, created by cartoonist Walt Kelly (1913–1973) and distributed by the Dell Publishing as part of a marketing campaign. It was created for the Peter Wheat Bread and Bakers Associates, and it was published between 1948 and 1956. All of the stories were fairy tales starring Peter Wheat, an elf-sized boy who lived in a hollow tree on the edge of a wheat field where he and his animal friends go on adventures and try to save the wheat field from Dragonel and Hornet Knights.
Contents
Unlike other advertising comic books of the time, such as Captain Tootsie, Peter Wheat did not directly advertise his product, but instead went on many his adventures with his animal friends. All direct ads were in the form of merchandising and secondary pamphlets.
History
The Adventures of Peter Wheat was created as a marketing tool to sell Peter Wheat Bread, a prepackaged bread that was sold in grocery stores and markets around the United States in the 1940s and 50s. It was created by Pogo creator Walt Kelly, and each story was a sixteen-page episode with an ad for the bread at the end.
The comic ran for 66 issues, although Kelly only worked on the first 35 issues. Later issues were sporadically released and featured stories by Del Connell with art by Al Hubbard.
Peter Wheat News
The Peter Wheat News was a four-page advertising flyer that could be folded into a mini-Peter Wheat comic. They normally ran in a three-story arc alongside the comic books, and it ran alongside the main comic continuity.
Main characters
Distribution and publication
Peter Wheat was distributed for free in bakeries around the United States, including Krug, Sterling, Rice's, Donaldson, Friedrichs', Mrs. Conklings, and others. The original material is difficult to find due to the limited distribution, and there are also many bits of merchandising that were created using the character of Peter Wheat, such as toy trucks.
Currently Peter Wheat is unavailable in its entire form, as it was only published as the free giveaways to grocery stores.
In 2016 the publishing company Hermes Press announced that they would be collecting and reprinting the series with help from comics historian Thomas Andrae.