Harvey Comics

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Harvey Comics (also known as Harvey Publications) was an American comic book publisher, founded by Alfred Harvey in 1941, after buying out small publisher Brookwood Publications. His brothers Robert B. Harvey and Leon Harvey joined soon after. The company soon got into licensed characters, which by the 1950s, became the bulk of their output. Their most prolific artist was Warren Kremer.

Harvey's flagship character, Casper the Friendly Ghost, in There's Good Boos To-Night (1948).

History

Among its best-known characters are Casper the Friendly Ghost, Baby Huey, Herman and Katnip, Little Audrey, Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare, and characters from Modern Madcaps. These characters originated as licensed properties, having been created by the Famous Studios animation studio, a division of Paramount Pictures, in the late-1940s and early 1950s. Harvey published several successful comic books based upon the Famous characters, and also developed original properties such as Richie Rich and Little Dot.

Harvey also licensed popular characters from newspaper comic strips, such as Mutt and Jeff and Sad Sack. While the company has tried to diversify the comics it published (with brief forays in the 50s and 60s into superhero, suspense, horror, western and the like under their Thrill Adventure and Harvey Thriller line), kid comics have been the bulk of their output.

In 1959, Harvey purchased the entire Famous line (including character rights and rights to the cartoon shorts). The Famous cartoons were repackaged and distributed to television as Harveytoons, and Harvey continued production on new comics and a handful of new cartoons produced for television. Casper the Friendly Ghost, who had been Famous' most popular original character, now became Harvey's top draw. Associated characters such as Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, The Ghostly Trio, Casper's horse Nightmare, Hot Stuff the Little Devil, and Wendy the Good Little Witch were added to the Harvey line.

Due to the slump in the comic book industry, Harvey stopped publishing in 1982-86. There was talk of licensing their characters to Marvel Comics. Marvel even published some Casper comic books — two issues were published in May 1997, which were followed by the short-lived Casper and Friends Magazine (May to July 1997) and there was also an adaption of the live-action movie.

The original Harvey company was sold in 1990, and became Harvey Entertainment. They published comics in the early-1990s as Harvey Classics. In 2001, Harvey Entertainment sold its Harvey properties and rights to the Harvey name to Classic Media (CM), which licenses characters from the Harvey library. Harvey Entertainment then changed its name to Sunland Entertainment.[1] Sad Sack is still owned by the successors of the Harvey family, as is Black Cat.

Harvey's mascot is Joker, a harlequin jack-in-the-box character, reminiscent of the mascot/logo for Paramount Pictures/Famous Studios' Noveltoons series of animated cartoons of the 1940s-1960s. Today, CM now owns the animated catalog.

Distribution of cartoons

For years, the TV distribution rights to the Harveytoons library were licensed to Worldvision Enterprises.^{[citation needed]} Worldvision would hold distribution rights to many earlier Famous Studios cartoons (plus most of the cartoons by Fleischer Studios) for a short time, until being absorbed by the television division of Paramount Pictures, which originally distributed the cartoons.  

Universal Studios, which owns the pre-1950 Paramount sound features, once held video rights to the Harvey-owned cartoons.

Harvey characters

Casper and his friends

• Casper the Friendly Ghost
• Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost
• Pearl (Spooky's girlfriend) (pronounced "Poil" by Spooky because of his Brooklyn-style accent, leading many to believe that "Poil" was her actual name unless another character pronounced her name properly)
• The Ghostly Trio
• Nightmare the Galloping Ghost (Casper's horse)
• Hot Stuff the Little Devil
• Wendy the Good Little Witch

Other characters

• Baby Huey
• Bunny Ball (Harvey's attempt to cash in on the teenage humor market)^[1]
• Flat-Top
• Herman and Katnip
• Jackie Jokers the Clown Prince of Show Biz
• Little Audrey
• Little Dot
• Little Lotta
• Mayda Munny
• Mazie
• Modern Madcaps (assorted characters)
• Rags Rabbit
• Richie Rich
• Sad Sack
• Stumbo the Giant
• Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare

Harvey superheroes

Golden Age

• Black Cat (Owned by the Harvey estate)
• Boys' Ranch (created by Simon & Kirby)
• Captain Freedom
• Fly-Man (created by Sam Glanzman)
• Shock Gibson
• Human Meteor
• Phantom Sphinx
• Red Blazer
• Spirit of '76
• Stuntman (owned by Joe Simon)
• Zebra
• Barry Kuda
• Black Orchid
• Blazing Scarab
• Clown
• Firebrand
• Neptina
• Night Hawk
• Red Demon
• Scarlet Arrow
• Scarlet Nemesis
• Scarlet Phantom
• Spitfire (Mahon)
• White Mask

Silver Age (Harvey Thriller)

• Bee-Man
• Captain 3-D (owned by Simon and Kirby)
• Captain Flower
• Fighting American (owned by Joe Simon)
• Fruitman (owned by Warren Harvey)
• Glowing Gladiator
• Jack Q. Frost
• Jigsaw (owned by Joe Simon)
• Magic Master
• Man in Black
• Miracles, Inc
• Pirana (owned by Joe Simon)
• Sooper Hippie
• Spyman (owned by Joe Simon)
• Tiger Boy (owned by Joe Simon)

Titles

Notes

References

• Harvey Entertainment
• The Harveyville Fun Times!
• Harvey Comics at Toonopedia
• Harvey Comics at International Superheroes
• Harvey Comics at Don Markstein's Toonopedia