Harvey Comics - History

History

Harvey Comics started out as a conventional comic book publisher. It published comic books that featured a combination of characters it inherited from Brookwood Publications, licensed characters such as the Green Hornet and Joe Palooka and its own original characters.

But the company ultimately became best known for characters it published from in comics from 1950s onward, particularly those it licensed from the animation company Famous Studios, a division of Paramount Pictures, in the late-1940s and early-1950s. These include Little Audrey, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Baby Huey, and Herman and Katnip. Harvey also licensed popular characters from newspaper comic strips, such as Mutt and Jeff and Sad Sack. In addition, Harvey also developed such original properties as Richie Rich, Little Dot and Little Lotta.

While the company tried to diversify the comics it published, with brief forays in the 1950s and 1960s into superhero, suspense, horror, western and other forms in such imprints as Harvey Thriller and Thrill Adventure, children's comics were the bulk of its 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.