Customer Reviews

The Best Of The Harveyville Fun Times!

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When I wrote this review, Mark Arnold, editor of this book, had the only other review of it. But I'm glad he reviewed his own book, which he may have been somewhat hesitant to do, because he certainly made me want to read it (along with the blurb from Scott Shaw! an astounding artist whose work I have followed for a long time). Arnold has, as they say, some chops for writing this book, as he for some sixteen years has edited a Harvey Comics fanzine, The Harveyville Fun Times. This book is called The Best of the Harveyville Fun Times because that's what it is: a whopping 11 X 8 color cover paperback weighing in at nearly 400 pages of reprints of the THFT.

At first I felt a bit ripped off since, had one been a long time subscriber, one would already have all these issues. But then I thought, "Why go to the trouble to rewrite the whole book from the fanzines rather than just reprinting them? Obviously Mark had the same idea. Great minds think alike, and so do we.

This is the best sort of browsing book, jammed with about a zillion pictures as well as Harvey trivia approached from every angle. Who knew Jerry Lewis did Sad Sack movies? Where did my favorite Harvey comic star, Hot Stuff, come from? What's the relation of the Famous/ Paramount cartoons to the comics?

I myself eagerly await each issue of a Little Lulu fanzine called The Hollywood EcLLectern, and I can't think of anything better than if all those issues were bound together in a book. What a happy thought that Mark Arnold has been there and done that with the big H comics, and even better that I can kick back with this enthralling volume and another H (Hefeweisen) and delve into the Harvey Fun Times.

The Best of the Harveyville Fun Times packs in a great deal of research. Culled from some of the best articles in the fanzines history, many pieces focus on the various Harvey characters in many different media; television, films, and comics. Indeed, you could spend many hours here, but sections of the material can be slightly repetitious since some show up again in various articles.

While a great deal of scholarly research has been done on Carl Bark's Uncle Scrooge character, this is one of the first editions done on the Casper and Richie Rich characters. In fact Mr. Christopher Barat makes some interesting comparisons to the comic book adventures of Casper and Richie with Disney's richest duck. He also does a great job summarazing and analysing many of the Richie Rich and Casper stories while looking for originality and other creative highlights in these hundreds of stories, which can get very maudlin after a while.

Something that caught my attention is when Richie Rich, who has always been faithful to his girlfriend, Gloria, has a unique encounter with the antagonist Mayda Munny in a dream sequence. Hmm. . . Maybe Richie is a bit more complicated than we thought. Anyway,it took Mr. Baret to draw this to my attention.

I also have to give Mr. Baret credit for using the word, "discombulate." Hey! Anybody who can use a word like that is all right in my book.

The text amply has interviews with the surviving Harvey company personal,episode guides to various Richie Rich tv programs, histories on Sad Sack (a favorite of mine), and volunteered art from a variety of people.

If there is a second edition, it would be nice to include an episode guide to the ninties Casper series, (which is up on the website) and a few other odds and ends. Another possible article could be on the best Richie and Casper stories that might have had a "bittersweet" feel to them. I also thought there was something poignant with Casper and Wendy's relationship due to the fact that Casper was ultimately a ghost while longing to be human. Wendy, however, was still a human girl, though a sorceress, which must have made things difficult for the two of them at times.

And on a totally trivial note, I'd also love to hear a bit more the short-lived, "Fruitman" comic from the sixites?

While this book might not be for everyone. It's essential to comic book historians who need to know there was more to to the industry that just superheroes and Disney. Invaluable alone for the Sad Sack material.

Sincerely,

James Smith III
carolyn@dia.net

We are in an era of reprints, we are in an era of high quality well made and presented reprints. It appears that we are in the second coming of the Golden age of comics. Not only are there a riot in reprints in nice full-color hard bound packs, but there are also very well made and presented books coming out on various classic comic series and characters.

But sadly this book is NOT the one.

First, Just in case if you have the slightest misconception, this is not a reprint. There is not a single story inside this book. "Harveyville times" is a magazine that is being produced by the author for several years, this magazine is more of a hand made locally circulated variety, where stories from various editions are very very briefly and dryly told in an indexed form.

here's an example:
"16. DAWG GONE - December 12, 1959 (plauful Little Audrey)
Directed by Seymour Kneitel. Audrey and Pat eat, then Audrey leaves for school. Pal follows and is told to go back home. Pal follows anyway. Audrey keeps sending him home. but Pal keeps trying. Soon, a dog catcher singing "Where Has My Little Dog Gone?" chases after Pal. Audrey rescues Pal, the catcher captures again and back and forth. (One is to assume Audrey takes afternoon courses?) Finally, the catcher uses a cat puppet to attract Pal. He catches Pal, but Audrey manages to get all of the dogs released, and in the end, Audrey is in a classroom full of dogs"

Pages after page of such brief note fill the book. with random images, and some flyers that came in those pages, all in black and white.

The book's formatting is horribly wrong. It looks like a facsimile of bad typed material, each page in different typeface, and different spacing, different formatting making it very difficult to read.

The pictures that appear sparsely inside this book are all in black and white and in very poor quality. The resolution varies as well.

The nicely done color cover is misleading and not an indicative of whats inside.

Of course the material inside might be of some interest for the analytically inclined.

Overall disappointing. Way too pricey for a black and white type-written photocopy, camaflouged between atrractive color covers.

Is it too self-serving to review my own book? I think not. I just wanted to let you know that I am really excited about this as my goal for a number of years was to publish a book. I know that everyone is not necessarily a comic book fan and especially not a Harvey Comics fan, but if you are, please give this a read. I have worked on this book over a 16 year period, and am very proud of the results. Also, please let me know what you think by posting your own review here.