Spooky and Casper

In the 1960's, the place to see the classic monsters was on TV. I would guess that every television market had at least one horror host hawking their weekly creature features. On the cover to Harvey Comics' 1966 The Tuff Little Ghost, SPOOKY, a trio of the classics monsters are leaping out of a TV screen to spook ol' Spooky himself.

For the cover of Casper, Strange Ghost Stories, #8, from 1976, the friendly, and much too saccharine, ghost turns the tables on the classic monster trio and gives them a shock.

A few weeks ago I went over to the city and visited the Cartoon Art Museum. If you find yourself in San Francisco, and you are a fan of these Harvey comics, you should take the time to look at some of the original art. I found some photos of the August 2008 opening here.

cover art © Harvey Cartoons

Casper The Friendly Ghost # 78

When this comic was published in February of 1965 I wasn't buying any Casper the Friendly Ghost books; but I must admit to picking up a few Hot Stuff the Little Devil every once in awhile, because of the art.

I have always liked the artwork of Warren Kramer. His cute cartoon style was very modular. Casper, Windy, Spooky, Hot Stuff, Richie Rich or Little Dot all looked about the same but with variations on Kramer's basic face and body construction. Howie Post and Ernie Colon also did a lot of the art in Harvey Comics. Kremer had done the original character designs and his art seemed to be a bit more symmetrical and rounder. The figures had a little extra air pumped into them.