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Of Harvey Comics and Noveltoons

A shout-out today to comic book entrepreneur Alfred Harvey (Alfred Harvey Wiernikoff, 1913-1994), who founded Harvey Comics in 1940, and employed his brothers Leon and Robert to help him run it.

Founded in the midst of the great comic book explosion of the late ’30s and early ’40s, the company initially introduced now-forgotten superhero characters like Captain Freedom and The Black Cat that were largely derivative of the hardier and more original Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, etc. More astutely it also put out comic book versions of radio and comic strip heroes like The Green Hornet, Dick Tracy, Joe Palooka, and Blondie.

What Harvey Comics remains best known and loved for, however, is their line of sweet and simple children’s comics. Coupled with these, there were animated cartoon versions, released by Paramount to replace the various series made by Fleischer Studios, whom Paramount had bought out. The original brand was Noveltoons (which has a punning double resonance, mixing the spelling of “cartoon” with a resemblance to Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes). Later they enhanced the name, releasing as Harveytoons.

We have posted about many of their popular characters and will likely add many others.

Casper the Friendly Ghost is surely their best known, followed by the many Casper spin-offs: Wendy the Good Little Witch, Hot Stuff the Little Devil, Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, and The Ghostly Trio.

Richie Rich, The Poor Little Rich Boy is probably nearly as famous as Casper. Little Audrey and Little Dot were among the other kid characters.

I have always been a particular fan of their humorous creations like Baby Huey, and Herman and Katnip

For a time they put out a comic book cased on the rock band The Cowsills!

There were also cartoons starring Raggedy Ann, and Snuffy Smith. And the seemingly inevitable stereotyped characters Paddy the Leprechaun and Buzzy (a black crow).

Alfred Harvey retired in 1982. His company was sold and has passed through many corporate incarnations since then, though the characters are deathless — especially all those ghosts, ha!