Harvey Comics (also known as Harvey World Famous Comics, Harvey Publications, Harvey Comics Entertainment, Harvey Hits, Harvey Illustrated Humor, and Harvey Picture Magazines) was an American comic bookpublisher, founded in New York City by Alfred Harvey in 1941, after buying out the small publisher Brookwood Publications. His brothers, Robert B. and Leon Harvey, joined shortly after. The company soon got into licensed characters, which, by the 1950s, became the bulk of their output. The artist Warren Kremer was closely associated with the publisher.
Harvey Comics' most notable characters are Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich. Harvey's mascot is named Joker, a harlequinjack-in-the-box character. He was also the mascot of the cartoon shorts series Noveltoons which brought many Harvey Comics characters to life; he also appeared as a cameo in the ending scene of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, alongside many other famous cartoon characters.
Harvey Comics was founded by the Harvey brothers—Alfred, Leon and Robert—in the 1940s after first acquiring an existing—faltering—title from Brookwood Publications, Speed Comics. The title's headliners were Shock Gibson and Captain Freedom, a patriotic hero like The Shield. Harvey added more anthologies, including Champion Comics and Pocket Comics. From the new titles only one would stay around for a while: The Black Cat, a Hollywood starlet-superhero, which was published into the 1950s.[1]
Harvey began a shift to licensed characters when in 1942 it took over as the radio hero Green Hornet's publisher from Holyoke after six issues. Harvey added additional titles, such that most of their titles were licensed. Licensed characters included Joe Palooka, Blondie, Dick Tracy, and other newspaper strip characters.[1]
In July 1958,[3] Harvey purchased the October 1950–December 1959 Famous Studios cartoons (including character rights and rights to the cartoon shorts, but excluding Popeye). 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. In 1963, when Paramount entered into a $78,000 agreement with Harvey to produce The New Casper Cartoon Show, they also sold their pre-March 1962 library of cartoons to Harvey for $1.[4]
1980s decline and sale
By the early 1980s, Marvel Comics was in negotiations with Harvey Comics to assume publication of some of their characters. Harvey editor Sid Jacobson, along with the other Harvey staff, were interviewed by Mike Hobson, Marvel's group vice-president of publishing (de facto publisher). As part of the process, Jacobson created several new characters which were well received by Hobson and effectively sealed the deal. Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter appointed editor Tom DeFalco as executive editor to coordinate with the Harvey staff, who were hired by Marvel. On the day Marvel was set to take over the Harvey publications, Harvey Comics pulled out of the deal due to an internal disagreement among the two remaining Harvey brothers, Alfred and Leon. Harvey would cease publishing its comics in 1982.[5]
In summer 1984, Steve Geppi (owner of Diamond Comic Distributors and Geppi's Comic World) paid $50,000 for, among other properties, Harvey's entire archive of original art from the Harvey comic Sad Sack. Geppi made this agreement with Steve Harvey, who at the time was president of Harvey Publications Inc., as well as president of Sad Sack Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvey Publications, Inc.[6]
In 1985 the Marvel imprint Star Comics published a title called Royal Roy. Harvey sued Star for copyright infringement, claiming that Roy was a blatant copy of Richie Rich.[7] Veteran Harvey writer-artist Lennie Herman had created Royal Roy for Star Comics. Herman died in 1983[8] before the first issue of Royal Roy was published. The Royal Roy comic ended after six issues and the lawsuit was dropped.[5]
In 1986, Harvey resumed publication[9] under the leadership of Alan Harvey (Alfred's oldest son), focusing on a few core titles, digests, and reprints.
In 1987, Harvey sued Columbia Pictures, for $50 million, claiming that the Ghostbusters logo used in the 1984 film was too reminiscent of Fatso from the Casper series. The court ruled in Columbia's favor,[10] due to Harvey's failure to renew the copyrights on early Casper stories and the "limited ways to draw a figure of a cartoon ghost".
In 1989, Harvey was sold to Jeffrey Montgomery's HMH Communications,[11] located in Santa Monica, California.[12] It was renamed Harvey Comics Entertainment (HCE),[13] publishing reprints in the early 1990s as Harvey Classics.[14] In 1993 the company created two imprints, Nemesis Comics and Ultracomics, to publish Ultraman comics, as well as a couple of other titles.[15] In 1994 Marvel took over publishing and distribution for HCE.[16]
In addition, Montgomery himself began selling a package of older cartoons featuring the characters Harvey had purchased from Paramount to local stations. With Claster Television serving as his distributor, Montgomery launched Casper & Friends in 1990. After the rerun package was pulled in 1994, Montgomery teamed with Carbunkle Cartoons and Film Roman respectively for two new animated series based on Harvey properties. The first, produced by Carbunkle and launching in 1994, featured Baby Huey and the second, produced by Film Roman, was a new Richie Rich cartoon launched in 1996; a previous series had been done without Harvey's involvement other than licensing the character to Hanna-Barbera.
During this period, Montgomery sold 20% of the company to MCA Inc., parent company of Universal Studios for $3 million. Universal licensed the characters for use in its theme parks. Montgomery also optioned Richie Rich and Casper for two feature films: Richie Rich was released in 1994 and was a financial flop, while Casper, which was released the following year, became a massive hit.
Montgomery also struck a publishing and distribution deal with Marvel Comics, which led Marvel to publish Casper titles, including an adaptation of the 1995 live-action Casper film. Two issues of an ongoing Casper title were published in May 1997, followed by the short-lived Casper and Friends Magazine (May–July 1997).
Sunland Entertainment
Montgomery was ousted from HCE in 1997, and in 2001,[17] the company sold its Harvey properties and rights to the Harvey name to Classic Media. HCE was renamed Sunland Entertainment Co. Sunland produced additional films and distributed its library of 150 films and 60 television episodes.[18] In 2000, Harvey bought out PM Entertainment, a home video and film distributor, and after selling it to Classic Media, Roger Burlage held on to PM.[19][20]
The rights to Sad Sack, Black Cat, and certain other Harvey characters are still owned by Alan Harvey, and have been published under the names of Lorne-Harvey Publications and Re-Collections. In late 2000, Alan Harvey sued Steve Geppi over his 1984 acquisition of the Sad Sack original art,[21] charging that Geppi had plundered Harvey's warehouses.[22] Geppi countersued, claiming that he had legal title to the original art.[6] The suit was settled in late 2002; at the time of the settlement, the New York Supreme Court had dismissed Harvey's claims against Geppi. The settlement agreement allowed Geppi to keep the art, with no money changing hands.[23][24]
For years, the television distribution rights to the Harveytoons library were licensed to Worldvision Enterprises. 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 through its television division, once held video rights to the Harvey-owned cartoons, until 2001 when Classic Media obtained the animated catalog. In 2016, rights to the Harvey Comics properties returned to Universal when they acquired Classic Media's parent company, DreamWorks Animation, who later produced Harvey Street Kids (later renamed Harvey Girls Forever!) based on Harvey Comics characters.
Girl Commandoes (a multinational team of women soldiers consisting of two American (Captain Pat Parker aka War Nurse and Penelope "Penny" Kirk), one British (Lieutenant Ellen Billing), one Russian (Tanya) and one Chinese (Mei Ling) introduced in Harvey's Speed Comics; they were portraited fighting Nazi and Japanese soldiers in World War II).
Richard "Richie" $ Rich Jr. is a fictional character in the Harvey Comics universe. He debuted in the comic book Little Dot #1, cover-dated September 1953, and was created by Alfred Harvey and Warren Kremer. Dubbed "the poor little rich boy", Richie is the only child of fantastically wealthy parents and is the world's richest kid. He is so rich, his middle name is a dollar sign, $.
Famous Studios was the first animation division of the film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 to 1967. Famous was established as a successor company to Fleischer Studios, after Paramount seized control of the aforementioned studio amid the departure of its founders, Max and Dave Fleischer, in 1942. The studio's productions included three series started by the Fleischers—Popeye the Sailor, Superman, and Screen Songs—as well as Little Audrey, Little Lulu, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Honey Halfwitch, Herman and Katnip, Baby Huey, and the Noveltoons and Modern Madcaps series.
Baby Huey is a gigantic and naïve duckling cartoon character. He was created by Martin Taras for Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios, and became a Paramount cartoon star during the 1950s. Huey first appeared in Quack-a-Doodle-Doo, a Noveltoon theatrical short produced and released in 1950.
Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc., is an American comic book distributor serving retailers in North America and worldwide. It transports comic books and graphic novels, as well as other popular culture products such as toys, games, and apparel, from comic book publishers or suppliers to retailers.
Herman and Katnip is a series of theatrical cartoons featuring Herman the Mouse and Katnip the Cat, produced by Famous Studios in the 1940s and 1950s. Arnold Stang and Allen Swift were the regular voices of Herman, while Sid Raymond was the regular actor for Katnip, although one or both of the characters would occasionally be voiced by Jackson Beck and Jack Mercer, respectively.
Wendy the Good Little Witch is a fictional comic book character from Harvey Comics. Like Casper the Friendly Ghost and Hot Stuff the Little Devil, Wendy is an opposite-type character, a girl witch who does good deeds.
Little Audrey is a fictional character, appearing in early 20th century comics prior to starring in a series of Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios cartoons from 1947 to 1958. She was devised after Paramount decided not to renew the license on Little Lulu, the comic strip character created by Marjorie Henderson Buell. Despite some superficial similarities between the two characters, the Famous animators were at pains to design Audrey in contrast to Lulu, adopting an entirely different color scheme and employing the stylistic conventions common to Famous Studios' later 1940s repertoire, as opposed to Buell's individualistic rendering of Little Lulu. Veteran animator Bill Tytla was the designer of Little Audrey, reportedly inspired by his daughter Tammy. The original voice of Little Lulu was performed by actress Cecil Roy. Little Audrey was, instead, voiced by Mae Questel, who also voiced most of Paramount's other major female cartoon characters, including Betty Boop and Olive Oyl from the Popeye cartoons.
Hot Stuff the Little Devil is a comic book character created by Warren Kremer who first appeared in Hot Stuff #1, published by Harvey Comics. Imbued with a mischievous personality and able to produce fire, Hot Stuff appears as a red child devil who wears a diaper and carries a magical sentient pitchfork, which is a character in its own right. Much to the consternation of his demonic brethren, Hot Stuff sometimes performs good deeds to irritate them.
Alfred Harvey, was the founder of comic book publisher Harvey Comics and the creator of the comic book characters Little Dot, Richie Rich, and Adam Awards. He was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, New York. Alfred Harvey's company, Harvey World Famous Comics, produced comic books and cartoons featuring Wendy the Good Little Witch, Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Baby Huey, Little Audrey, and Little Dot. It also published Sad Sack, the military comic strip, which was created by George Baker.
Star Comics was an imprint of Marvel Comics that began in 1984 and featured titles that were aimed at child readers and were often adaptations of children's television series, animated series or toys. The last comic published under the imprint featured a May 1988 cover date, although the Star Comics Magazine continued through December 1988. Some of the titles continued after that, being published directly by Marvel. Several of the original titles consciously emulated the house writing and visual style of then-recently defunct Harvey Comics titles such as Richie Rich.
Ernesto Colón Sierra was a stateside Puerto Rican comics artist, known for his wide-ranging career illustrating children's, superhero, and horror comics, as well as mainstream nonfiction.
Sad Sack is an American comic strip and comic book character created by Sgt. George Baker during World War II. Set in the United States Army, Sad Sack depicted an otherwise unnamed, lowly private experiencing some of the absurdities and humiliations of military life. The so-called "unnamed private" was actually Ben Schnall, a true-life private in the US Army during World War II, member of Yank magazine and good curmudgeonly friend of Sgt. George Baker. The title was a euphemistic shortening of the military slang "sad sack of shit", common during World War II. The phrase has come to mean "an inept person" or "inept soldier".
Little Dot is a comic book character published by Harvey Comics about a little girl who is obsessed with dots, spots, and round, colorful objects. She was created in 1949 by writer Alfred Harvey and artist Vic Herman.
The Harveytoons Show is a television series presenting theatrical animated cartoons produced by Famous Studios from 1950 until 1962, which were acquired by Harvey Entertainment.
The Harvey Entertainment Company was the production arm of comic book publisher Harvey Comics. It was founded in 1957.
Howard Post was an American animator, cartoonist, and comic strip and comic book writer-artist.
Casper the Friendly Ghost is a fictional character who serves as the protagonist of the Famous Studios theatrical animated cartoon series of the same name. He is a translucent ghost who is pleasant and personable, but often criticized by his three wicked uncles, the Ghostly Trio.
Zavier Leslie Cabarga, popularly known as Leslie Cabarga, is an American author, illustrator, cartoonist, animator, font designer, and publication designer. A participant in the underground comix movement in the early 1970s, he has since gone on to write and/or edit over 40 books. His art style evokes images from the 1920s and 1930s, and over the years Cabarga has created many products associated with Betty Boop. His book The Fleischer Story in the Golden Age of Animation, originally published in 1976, has become the authoritative history of the Fleischer Studios.
References
1 2 3 4 Markstein, Don. "Harvey Comics". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Don Markstein. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
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