Harvey Comics was an American comic book publisher, founded in New York City, originally by Worth Carnahan in 1939, then handed over to editor Leo Greenwald in 1940, and finally by Alfred Harvey in 1941, after buying out Worth Carnahan's comics group and the small publisher Brookwood 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 from cartoons produced by Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios. The artist Warren Kremer was closely associated with the pu
Harvey Comics was an American comic book publisher, founded in New York City, originally by Worth Carnahan in 1939, then handed over to editor Leo Greenwald in 1940, and finally by Alfred Harvey in 1941, after buying out Worth Carnahan's comics group and the small publisher Brookwood 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 from cartoons produced by Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios. The artist Warren Kremer was closely associated with the pu
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Harvey Comics (also known as Worth Carnahan Comics, Greenwald Publications, Harvey World Famous Comics, Harvey Publications, Harvey Comics Entertainment, Harvey Hits, Harvey Illustrated Humor, and Harvey Picture Magazines) was an American comic book publisher, founded in New York City, originally by Worth Carnahan in 1939, then handed over to editor Leo Greenwald in 1940, and finally by Alfred Harvey in 1941, after buying out Worth Carnahan's comics group and the small publisher Brookwood 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 from cartoons produced by Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios. The artist Warren Kremer was closely associated with the publisher.
Harvey Comics' most notable characters are mostly former Famous Studios properties, such as Casper the Friendly Ghost, in addition to original characters like Richie Rich. Harvey's mascot is named Joker, a harlequin jack-in-the-box character and mascot of the cartoon shorts series Noveltoons. He also appeared as a cameo in the ending scene of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, alongside many other famous cartoon characters.
Origins
The origins of Harvey Comics itself was dated back to 1939 in New York City, when Worth Carnahan begin publishing comics with its distribution handled by Publishers Distributing Corporation and Leo Greenwald, who worked for Publishers Distributing Corporation as editor and co-owner.
Three titles came out were the anthology superhero titles Champion Comics (later shortened to Champ Comics), Cyclone Comics and O.K. Comics. Carnahan, besides publishing its bestseller Champion Comics through Worth Publishing, was also a partner with Charles Quinlan, later of Holyoke Publishing, in the group Hit Publications to publish O.K. Comics, and also both Carnahan and Quinlan partnered with Bilbara Publishing Co. Inc., an independent company led by William M. Cotton, to publish Cyclone Comics.
Greenwald then took control of the Worth Carnahan comic book group, naming it Greenwald Publications, and later took over its faltering title Speed Comics in 1940 from Brookwood Publications, a company owned by Frank Z. Temerson and Isaac W. Ullman, and Greenwald took control of the comic book organization, having published two anthology titles Speed Comics and Champ Comics.
Establishment of Harvey Comics
Greenwald then recruited the Harvey brothers Alfred, Leon and Robert, as Harvey had just departed Fox Features Syndicate, in 1941, and then took control of the organization passing over from Greenwald. In 1941, the Greenwald group, who at that time, published only two titles, was transformed into Harvey Publications. Their early headliners were Shock Gibson and Captain Freedom, a patriotic hero similar to The Shield. Harvey then jumped into the digest sized market with another anthology title Pocket Comics, which was merged with the larger Speed Comics in 1942. Only one of their early titles find longevity: The Black Cat, a Hollywood starlet-superhero, which was published into the 1950s.
Harvey began a shift to licensed characters in 1942 when it took over the license to the radio hit Green Hornet from Holyoke, which has published six comics issues. Harvey added additional titles, most licensed, including Joe Palooka, Blondie, Dick Tracy, and other newspaper strip characters. The company gradually shifted away from superheroes, to other genres, like the horror genre in the late 1940s and 1950s.
Shift to children's comics
The company is best known for characters it published in comics from 1950s onward, particularly ones developed by the animation company Famous Studios which Harvey licensed starting in 1951, moving over from St. John Publications. These include Little Audrey, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Baby Huey, and Herman and Katnip. The company then gradually shifted away from its focus on horror and superhero titles to focus mostly on children's comics such as the Paramount-licensed characters after the Comics Code Authority took effect.
In July 1958, Harvey purchased the cartoon properties of Famous Studios (October 1950–December 1959), including character rights and rights to the cartoon shorts but excluding the Popeye cartoons. 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-April 1962 library of cartoons to Harvey for $1.
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 executi
Harvey also licensed popular characters from newspaper comic strips, such as Mutt and Jeff and Sad Sack. In addition, Harvey 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, teen titles as Harvey Teen (known for Bunny and Fruitman), and romance comics under the True Love Series imprint, children's comics were the bulk of its output.
