Peter and Company actually began in 1998 as a zany Slice of Life, with many of the original comic's characters were either reworked into the reboot or simply retconned. Due to Jon deleting all traces of the original comic, most people only know of the second comic and commonly see it as the original despite it technically being a reboot.
The second comic is a solo project, with Jonathan producing each page using traditional pencil and brush ink instead of digital techniques.
The author has talked about an animated pilot based on this webcomic is being developed.
Whitney was never apart of the author's childhood, but during the earlier days of the comic, she requested that she be put into the comic as a love interest for Peter on the basis of them being in a relationship in real life.
Trivia Tropes:
Bury Your Art: Jon deleted the early version of Peter and Company that he made prior to 2005 out of shame and not wanting to confuse readers on which was canon or not, with only a few people and websites having all the pages to the comic.
Creator Backlash: Jon outright dislikes the original comic of Peter and Comic he started back in 1998, seeing it as stupid and reviling it over the fact he had little to no direction with its story.
Creator's Pest: Jon doesn't look back fondly at Dr. Victor and Dr. Fritz and the arcs they were involved in as he felt they were out of place for the kind of work he was trying to make at the time, and much like he did with the School Counselor, he felt that having a villain for the story felt pointless.
Memorial Character: Chelsea ends up becoming this later in the comic and sequels due to the fact that her real-life counterpart that she was based on passed away later down the line.
Streisand Effect: Jon's deletion of the original 1998 comic has led to many websites and archivists preserving all of its pages despite wanting them to be forgotten in favor of the 2005 release of Peter and Company.
Jon himself states on strip 73 of the comic that the School Counselor, a character introduced in the comic during 2006 based on his actual counselor from his childhood, was originally set to become a villain of the story who severed the bonds between guardians and their chosen kids, but he ultimately decided against it as he felt the comic didn't need a dedicated villain or an evil counterpart to the guardians.
On strip 200, Chelsea was intended to have another antagonist arc which would've brought back Dr. Victor and Dr. Fritz for a third chapter where she would have handed them her findings on Peter and Seth. However, in 2023, Jon explained on the page itself that he decided to scrap the entire arc back then since he couldn't find a feasible scenario as to why Chelsea would even do it or why the two doctors would pick her to assist them, knowing that any reason he came up with would seem out of the blue. He was also fully aware of the fact that the two doctors did not at all fit the genre he had intended his comic to be, so he decided to keep them gone from the comic for good.
The author has stated both on his comic and elsewhere that Tracy was actually his wife’s friend who willingly agreed to be put in the comic as an inside joke against an unpleasant classmate that Jon had to deal with in a class assignment.
Write What You Know: The commentary on each page reveals that the comic is semi-autobiographical; while the artist claims that he did not have an imaginary friend growing up, the majority of situations that Peter finds himself in are directly based on events that did happen to him, with fictional events thrown in the mix (e.g The perfume incident with Whitney, Tracy being a problematic classmate).
Write Who You Know: Most of the characters, particularly Whitney and Chelsea, in the story are all based off people from real life and use their same names. The only one whose real name isn't used is the author's avatar, Peter.
