Harvey Comics Classics Volume 5: Harvey Girls (Harvey Comic Classics) [Paperback]

Leslie Cabarga (Editor), Jerry Beck (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: Harvey Comic Classics

They're cute, they're clever, and they're obsessive! Some of Harvey Comics' biggest stars were three "little" girls with large dreams, enormous hearts and king-size laughs: Little Audrey, Little Dot, and Little Lotta. Audrey was a Paramount Pictures animated cartoon movie star, who became a major comic book headliner in 1948. Her comic book stories were filled with ingenuity and her spunky, proto-feminist antics rivaled those of her cartoon progenitor, Little Lulu. The strangely obsessive Little Dot has become a cult figure throughout the years. Her love of dots and her unique coterie of eccentric uncles and aunts became the basis for some of the funniest stories in comic book history. Last, but hardly least, is Little Lotta who defied the "big" girl stereotype with adventures showcasing an incredible strength that equaled her insatiable appetite. It's 480 pages - many in finely reproduced full color - of Harvey Girls gone wild! This comics collection features the very earliest stories, beginning in the 1950s and leading up into the classic period of the 1960s.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse; 1st edition (March 18, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595821716
• ISBN-13: 978-1595821713
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #321,148 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Say it Ain't So?!?, April 9, 2009

By 

Mark Arnold "movie/tv, comic book and animati... (Saratoga, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Harvey Comics Classics Volume 5: Harvey Girls (Harvey Comic Classics) (Paperback)

As stated in the introduction, this is the fifth and final volume of the "Harvey Comics Classics" series from Dark Horse. (a moment of silence). The good news is that this offers the best of what are usually deemed "one-note" characters from Harvey and there is a glimmer of hope in the introduction that the Harvey characters will be back soon in some other form, but for now, grab this while you can!! It may be a while...

After reading this volume, you will discover that Dot had more dimension than just solely an obsession with dots and Lotta had more dimension than just solely an obsession with food. Admittedly, as time went on, the characters became stale for their constant repetition, but here they are in their prime.

And Audrey, she's much more of a mischievous scamp similar to Little Lulu that she was modeled after than the more bland stories of later years. If you are unsure of or dislike the Harvey Girls, give this one a read. It'll change your mind.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I loved it!, April 11, 2009

By 

WaverlyTN "Hello Mom" (Waverly, TN) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Harvey Comics Classics Volume 5: Harvey Girls (Harvey Comic Classics) (Paperback)

Having grown up in the wonderful Age of Harvey comics, I've always been a casual fan of Little Dot, Little Lotta, and Little Audrey. For so many great comics in one book, the price couldn't be beat, so I figured I would give it a shot.

I never dreamed I would like it this much, but to be honest, I loved it! I can't think of enough praise for Dark Horse Comics for doing such a wonderful job. I think young and old alike will love the humorous stories from such a carefree time.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ladies worth getting to know, May 8, 2009

By 

Christopher Barat (Owings Mills, MD, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Harvey Comics Classics Volume 5: Harvey Girls (Harvey Comic Classics) (Paperback)

According to Leslie Cabarga, this will be the last HARVEY COMICS CLASSICS release for the foreseeable future. Before getting on to the material at hand, I wanted to make sure to thank Leslie, Jerry, and the folks at Dark Horse for a reprint project that, while far from flawless, surely did well by the "Harvey World" standbys. Hopefully the hiatus is strictly due to the economy and new volumes will appear soon.

Volume 5 is, of necessity, a bit scrapbookish, covering as it does the early four-color careers of three characters, of whom one (Audrey) never crossed over to visit any of the other Harvey stars (at least, not until she got a brief -- and quite enjoyable -- opportunity to pair with Richie Rich in the early-80's title RICHIE RICH AND HIS GIRL FRIENDS). While Audrey had a respectable run, I can't help but think that had Steve Mufatti, Larz Bourne, et al. not showed such fidelity to the world of the cartoon shorts in the early AUDREY stories, the feisty kid might have used the extra "wiggle room" to squirm out of her neighborhood and into team-ups with Dot, Lotta, and others, which would probably have prolonged her active career. As it turned out, once Audrey's neighborhood gang (Melvin, Tiny, and Lucretia) was introduced, the AUDREY books basically became Harvey's hermetically sealed version of LITTLE LULU -- fitting, in light of the fact that Famous Studios created Audrey to replace Lulu when they lost the rights to the latter, but ultimately damaging to Aud's reputation as a formidable character in her own right. There's no doubt that the artwork of Mufatti and Howie Post has it all over Irving Tripp (John Stanley's main illustrator on the LULU stories) insofar as liveliness and charm goes, but, especially after Lucretia and her Annie-like buck tooth arrive on the scene, it's tough not to look at Audrey and not think immediately of Ms. Moppet and her cronies. Even the use of the supposedly "black" Tiny -- admittedly, a rather bold move for the 50s -- has to be qualified somewhat, as Tiny looks more like a crew-cut white kid colored black than, say, the more obvious black child Bumbazine that Walt Kelly drew for the earliest POGO stories. These stories are lively and fun and partake liberally of the charming atmosphere of Aud's better cartoons -- I especially enjoyed the "dreamed" South Pacific parody with Aud as a native girl and Melvin as "Safety Pinsa" (get it?) -- but the aura of "knockoff" will always linger, and that's a real shame.

The volume's true revelation, from my point of view, are the earliest LITTLE DOT stories, in which Steve Mufatti does a complete makeover on the not-very-inspired character of the same name who had been a backup feature in SAD SACK for several years. Insofar as Mufatti was a major artistic influence on Warren Kremer, this relaunch was one of the key moments in the development of the "Harvey World" style. In his introduction, Jerry Beck describes Mufatti's artwork as "slightly anachronistic, recalling late 1920s and early 1930s cartooning." On the contrary -- though a guy who was supposedly born in 1880 and therefore would have been over 70 at the time he drew these stories, Mufatti was right on the cutting edge of kids' comics of the day. The early Dot is simply adorable (though Mufatti takes a story or two to settle on giving her one ponytail instead of two) without being "cutesy" in the slightest. Conspicuous by its absence in these opening salvos is the "dot obsession" that would come to define Dot's character in future years. According to "Alphabet Land," Dot's sort-of-origin story in LITTLE DOT #5, she didn't even originally have dots on her dress. "Pop Goes the Measles" (LD #13) is the first story in which Dot shows any unusual interest in dots at all, and there, she's merely marveling over the fact that she's developed a case of ultra-rare "black measles." Like several other early stories, "Measles" takes the form of a "tall story" that Dot tells to her friend Lotta and her soon-to-be-dropped friend Red. This is definitely Lulu territory, and I get the sense that Bourne and the other writers may have been scuffling to distinguish Dot from Audrey in a way other than the fact that she has scads of oddball uncles and aunts dropping in at all times. (Some of these early "relative adventures," such as the ones with mountain-climbing Uncle Alp, wire-walking Uncle Balance, and lion-taming Uncle Fang, start with Dot being all but shanghaied by her compulsive clansfolk.) By issue #16, Dot is trying to convince a bandleader to put dots on uniforms and dreaming of becoming "Queen of Dot-Land," and it's all downhill (rolling, naturally, since these are round objects we're talking about) from there. Stories by Sid Couchey, the artist most associated with Dot (and Lotta), appear at the tail end of the Dot section, but they're not from his prime period, in which Dot occasionally got to participate in stories extending beyond five pages. Alas, Jerry and Leslie cut off their material at 1962.

Little Lotta runs the anchor leg of the volume, and, apart from being slightly smaller in bulk in the early days, she arrives on the scene pretty much fully-developed (stow the jokes about overeating, if you please!). There's no question in my mind that the fateful decision to allow Dot and Lotta to be pals (which they are from the very start, in LD #1's "Show Business") helped prolong the ladies' careers. A lot of the early LOTTA stories seem a little too willing to resort to the somewhat lazy "Lotta dreams up an adventure" gambit, but more fruitful developments, such as the introduction of Lotta's pint-sized boyfriend Gerald and her lively Grandpa -- for all intents and purposes, the "Harvey World"'s version of Poopdeck Pappy, and easily worth two dozen of Dot's carload of uncles and aunts -- presage a career that, like Dot's and Audrey's, proved more than respectable. Like Dark Horse's fine LITTLE LULU volumes, this is an ideal collection to give a young girl who might be interested in comics, but, as Jerry Beck correctly notes, these stories will be enjoyable to readers of all predilections... not to mention both genders.