Before The Harvey Comics

Trivia time.
A lot of people don't know that Casper, Baby Huey, Buzzy Crow, Little Audrey, and the cat and mouse duo Herman And Katnip were NOT original Harvey Comics characters. Actually, all of them were created by the animators at Paramount's Famous Studios, with the exception of Casper, who was created by freelancers that were not on staff.
So there ya go. Y'all just learned something. To help you remember, here's a few pages of comics that pre-date the Harvey era. You'll likely notice that prior to these characters being purchased by Harvey they looked very different. That's very evident. Why they changed the looks, I really don't know for certain. But I believe it was a marketing thing in much the same way that Stan Lee or Walt Disney wanted to have an immediately recognizable style to match their brand names.
But enough of my yammering, just enjoy this brief interlude of golden age goodness. You're welcome.

art and story uncredited
from CASPER #4, March 1951







BONUS! Here's a Baby Huey one pager from the same comic. I actually prefer him looking like a real goose instead of his 'classic' look.



And that just goes to show ya, the real 'goose that laid the golden egg' for the Harvey brothers wasn't the goose, it was the ghost. Casper proved to be infinitely more popular and profitable than Huey (or Audrey, etc, etc).
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