Do these books exist? (Adventures of) Peter Wheat #65 and #66 0

[OtherEric]

47 and 48.  49 is one that neither I nor the Heritage lot have:

[OtherEric]

50 and 52

[OtherEric]

53 and 54.  54 wasn't in the lot on heritage.

[sacentaur]

Since Peter Wheat appears to be poorly documented (this thread has certainly been an eye opener for me), have you given any thought to reaching out to Hermes Press? I'd be especially interested in what they will have do say in vol. 2 regarding issues 65 and 66.

[sacentaur]

Peter Wheat and the Breadmen was a 1960's garage band/opening act from Northern California. They have a couple of songs on YouTube (including one I kinda like called All The Time), if interested.

[OtherEric]

39 minutes ago, sacentaur said:

Since Peter Wheat appears to be poorly documented (this thread has certainly been an eye opener for me), have you given any thought to reaching out to Hermes Press? I'd be especially interested in what they will have do say in vol. 2 regarding issues 65 and 66.

I contacted them when they announced the project; they said they would be in touch and then weren't.

I don't know that they plan to reprint the non- Walt Kelly issues, so 65 and 66 (and their probable non-existence) may not matter.  I'm more interested in seeing if they manage to track down the Kelly issues of Peter Wheat News.

I'll get to that title next, since people seem to be enjoying this thread in general.

[sacentaur]

I emailed Bob Birdwell, one of the members (1964) of Peter Wheat & the Breadmen, and rec'd this reply from him:

Hi, Steve.

I'll link you to a site that explains how the name was derived.

https://barrymcarlos.wordpress.com/peter-wheat-and-the-breadmen/

In the SF Bay Area there was a Peter Wheat Bread Factory, (in Castro Valley).

It was owned by a man named Friedrich, and we used his old 1913 Breadtruck as
a prop for our publicity photo, (I'll attach a copy of that photo).

I never knew there were comic books until I started Googling the band in hopes of
gathering up old photos, etc.   Back in the day, it was not something any of us ever thought
about.  Who knew people would still be interested in a band from 50 years ago!

I also never heard that Walt Kelly illustrated any of them until your email.

Good luck, and ask me anything.

Bob

Edited June 20, 2017 by sacentaur

[Sqeggs]

4 hours ago, sacentaur said:

I emailed Bob Birdwell, one of the members (1964) of Peter Wheat & the Breadmen, and rec'd this reply from him:

Hi, Steve.

I'll link you to a site that explains how the name was derived.

https://barrymcarlos.wordpress.com/peter-wheat-and-the-breadmen/

In the SF Bay Area there was a Peter Wheat Bread Factory, (in Castro Valley).

It was owned by a man named Friedrich, and we used his old 1913 Breadtruck as
a prop for our publicity photo, (I'll attach a copy of that photo).

I never knew there were comic books until I started Googling the band in hopes of
gathering up old photos, etc.   Back in the day, it was not something any of us ever thought
about.  Who knew people would still be interested in a band from 50 years ago!

I also never heard that Walt Kelly illustrated any of them until your email.

Good luck, and ask me anything.

Bob

Great piece of research, Steve.

[OtherEric]

6 hours ago, Sqeggs said:

Great piece of research, Steve.

I can only second that!  Thank you so much for tracking that down!

And now, to finish off what I've got of Adventure of Peter Wheat.  Here's 55 and 56:

[OtherEric]

57 and 59:

[OtherEric]

60 and 61:

[sacentaur]

Friedrichs! 

[OtherEric]

I don't have 62 or 63, so here's 64, the last confirmed issue.

Tomorrow I'll start on Peter Wheat News, and end with a few oddities.

[ChiSoxFan]

One of the great things about this hobby is, you can always find out something fascinating about it that you had no clue even existed before.  This thread is a perfect example -- I didn't know anything about the title, or about the potential of books not existing that are "supposed" to.  Great thread, and a showcase of what a wealth of knowledge can be found on these boards. 

[OtherEric]

23 hours ago, ChiSoxFan said:

One of the great things about this hobby is, you can always find out something fascinating about it that you had no clue even existed before.  This thread is a perfect example -- I didn't know anything about the title, or about the potential of books not existing that are "supposed" to.  Great thread, and a showcase of what a wealth of knowledge can be found on these boards. 

Glad you're enjoying the thread, I'm having fun posting the books!

Today I'm going to start posting Peter Wheat News, and it's such an oddball format of a book that I'm actually going to post a whole issue, just so people know what it looks like.

An issue of Peter Wheat News is actually only 4 pages long; it's a single piece of paper folded in half.  When closed, it's slightly smaller than a normal magazine- same height, slightly narrower.  It's essentially an advertising flyer.

The front cover is normally by some random artist, or in a few late issues just a photograph.  It can vary quite widely in what it's doing, we'll see various themes as I post the few issues I have.  As near as I can tell, Walt Kelly (or later, Al Hubbard) never drew the cover, although some of them do feature clip or promo art by them being reused for the cover.  For example, I'm not sure that the Peter Wheat figure on the cover of #19, here, isn't by Kelly- but the rest of the cover is clearly not him.  19 is my earliest complete issue; and it always reminds me of the TV show Bewitched, even though this issue came out years before the show started:

[OtherEric]

Page 2 is a bakery ad, in later issues it's list of daily specials for the month, but in earlier issues it's at least a little more interesting.  Not much more, though:

[OtherEric]

Pages 3 and 4 are where the book actually gets fun.  This page gets cut off and folded in half to form a digest size mini-comic, and is by Walt Kelly in the 1st 36 issues, and Al Hubbard later.  Other than the first 6 issues, which form a single story, these are always 3-parters, so this is part one of the story.  I know the series ran to at least #65, and probably 66, based on partial stories that I've tracked down and seen scans of- but without some external evidence, it's almost impossible to tell what issue a partial copy comes from.  We've located parts of enough stories to know there are 20 3-parters as well as the initial 6 parter, but we can't be sure the last chapter of the last story was published.

Overstreet describes this as 2 pages Walt Kelly art.  I personally would call it 4, but I understand the argument.  Tomorrow I'll post more covers.

 

[Arnold Strauss]

Posting those issues that Other Eric did not post.  Peter Wheat #4

[Arnold Strauss]

Peter Wheat 5 & 6

[Arnold Strauss]

Peter Wheat 9, 10 & 13