Harvey Comics

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

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.

Among its best-known characters are Casper the Friendly Ghost and 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; also Richie Rich, Baby Huey, Herman and Katnip, Little Audrey, Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare, and characters from Modern Madcaps. 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.

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 of 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. Harvey Entertainment was now owned by Classic Media, which licenses characters from the Harvey library. 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. This is reminiscent of the mascot/logo for Paramount Pictures/Famous Studios' Noveltoons series of animated cartoons of the 1940s-1960s. Harvey Comics had a close relationship with Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios animation division – many of their most popular characters, including Casper the Friendly Ghost, Baby Huey, Herman & Katnip, Little Audrey, and Tommy Tortoise & Moe Hare, all started as characters in Paramount cartoons during the 1940s, and were sold to Harvey in 1957.