 Logo used as of 1994 | |
| Formerly | Harvey Publications |
|---|---|
| Industry | Comic books |
| Predecessor | Brookwood Publications |
| Founded | 1941; 84 years ago (1941) |
| Founder | Alfred Harvey |
| Defunct | 2002; 23 years ago (2002) |
| Fate | Folded IntoThe Harvey Entertainment Company |
| Successor | The Harvey Entertainment Company |
| Headquarters | New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Parent | DreamWorks Classics (NBCUniversal) |
Harvey Comics (also known asHarvey World Famous Comics,Harvey Publications,Harvey Comics Entertainment,Harvey Hits,Harvey Illustrated Humor, andHarvey Picture Magazines) was an Americancomic bookpublisher, founded inNew York City byAlfred Harvey in 1941, after buying out the small publisherBrookwood Publications. His brothers, Robert B. and Leon Harvey, joined shortly after. Though the company was founded to publish original comics, by the 1950s, it was focused on licensed content, largely fromParamount Pictures'Noveltoons series. The artistWarren Kremer was closely associated with the publisher.
Harvey Comics' most notable characters areCasper the Friendly Ghost andRichie Rich. Harvey'smascot is named Joker, aharlequinjack-in-the-box character. Originally, he was the mascot of the cartoon shorts seriesNoveltoons, which originated many of Harvey Comics' key characters; he also appeared as a cameo in the ending scene of the filmWho Framed Roger Rabbit, alongside many other famous cartoon characters.
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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 wereShock Gibson andCaptain 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 heroGreen Hornet's publisher from Holyoke after six issues. Harvey added additional titles, such that most of their titles were licensed. Licensed characters includedJoe Palooka,Blondie,Dick Tracy, and other newspaper strip characters.[1]
The company ultimately became best known for characters it published in comics from 1950s onward, particularly those it licensed from the animation companyFamous Studios, a unit ofParamount Pictures, starting in 1951.[2] These includeLittle Audrey,Casper the Friendly Ghost,Baby Huey, andHerman and Katnip.[1] Harvey also licensed popular characters from newspapercomic strips, such asMutt and Jeff andSad Sack.[3] In addition, Harvey developed such original properties asRichie Rich,Little Dot[1] andLittle 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 suchimprints asHarvey Thriller andThrill Adventure,children's comics were the bulk of its output.
In July 1958,[4] Harvey purchased the October 1950–December 1959 Famous Studios cartoons (including character rights and rights to the cartoon shorts, but excludingPopeye). The Famous cartoons were repackaged and distributed totelevision asHarveytoons, 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 asSpooky the Tuff Little Ghost, TheGhostly Trio, Casper's horse Nightmare,Hot Stuff the Little Devil, andWendy the Good Little Witch were added to the Harvey line. In 1963, when Paramount entered into a $78,000 agreement with Harvey to produceThe New Casper Cartoon Show, they also sold their pre-March 1962 library of cartoons to Harvey for $1.[5]
By the early 1980s,Marvel Comics was in negotiations with Harvey Comics to assume publication of some of their characters. Harvey editorSid 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-ChiefJim Shooter appointed editorTom 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 in1982.[6]
In summer 1984,Steve Geppi (owner ofDiamond Comic Distributors andGeppi's Comic World) paid $50,000 for, among other properties, Harvey's entire archive of original art from the Harvey comicSad Sack. Geppi made this agreement withSteve Harvey, who at the time was president of Harvey Publications Inc., as well as president ofSad Sack Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvey Publications, Inc.[7]
In 1985 the Marvel imprintStar Comics published a title calledRoyal Roy. Harvey sued Star for copyright infringement, claiming that Roy was a blatant copy ofRichie Rich.[8] Veteran Harvey writer-artist Lennie Herman had createdRoyal Roy for Star Comics. Herman died in 1983[9] before the first issue ofRoyal Roy was published. TheRoyal Roy comic ended after six issues and the lawsuit was dropped.[6]
In 1986, Harvey resumed publication[10] under the leadership of Alan Harvey (Alfred's oldest son), focusing on a few core titles,digests, and reprints.
In 1987, Harvey suedColumbia Pictures, for $50 million, claiming that the ghost in the logo of the filmGhostbusters was too reminiscent ofFatso from the Casper series. The court ruled in Columbia's favor,[11] 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 Comics was sold to Jeffrey Montgomery's HMH Communications and was renamed asHarvey Comics Entertainment, later named The Harvey Entertainment Company.[12] located inSanta Monica, California.[13][14] Under the new ownership, the company emphasized on re-syndicating their properties for both television and in press.[15]
Following the initial wave of syndicating the Harvey catalogue, Harvey began producing their own original programs includingThe Baby Huey Show andRichie Rich, as well as producing feature-length films under an agreement withUniversal Pictures, includingRichie Rich andCasper, later outsourcing the production ofdirect-to-video material for both franchises over toSaban Entertainment.[16]
Montgomery was ousted from the company in March 1998, and following various acquisitions and expansions to add content outside of the Harvey Classics including the purchase ofPM Entertainment, Harvey was close to going into liquidation. In February 2001, The Harvey Entertainment Company announced that it would sell the entire Harvey catalogue over toClassic Media,[17] a deal of which would close by June 2001.[18][19]
The rights toSad Sack,Black Cat, and certain other Harvey characters are still owned by Alan Harvey, and have been published under the names ofLorne-Harvey Publications andRe-Collections. In late 2000, Alan Harvey sued Steve Geppi over his 1984 acquisition of theSad Sack original art,[20] charging that Geppi had plundered Harvey's warehouses.[21] Geppi countersued, claiming that he had legal title to the original art.[7] The suit was settled in late 2002; at the time of the settlement, theNew York Supreme Court had dismissed Harvey's claims against Geppi. The settlement agreement allowed Geppi to keep the art, with no money changing hands.[22][23]
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For years, the television distribution rights to theHarveytoons library were licensed toWorldvision Enterprises. Worldvision would hold distribution rights to many earlierFamous Studios cartoons (plus most of the cartoons byFleischer Studios) for a short time, until being absorbed by thetelevision division ofParamount Pictures, which originally distributed the cartoons.
Universal Studios, which owns the pre-1950 Paramount sound features through itstelevision 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 producedHarvey Street Kids (later renamedHarvey Girls Forever!) based on Harvey Comics characters.[24]
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