This is cool: an August 1966 advertising calendar for newsagents promoting Harvey's Action Line!
Harvey Comics Promotional Calendar for August 1966
I was gonna title this post "August Audrey (Little) Advertising," but there's no Little Audrey (or Lotta, or Dot) to bee seen in this promo! It's all Harvey's new action/adventure series, made up of comics like these:
- Fighting American: Jack Kirby and Joe Simon's attempt to reboot their Prize Comics superhero, lasted one issue)
- Thrill-O-Rama, which cover-featured: The Man in Black Called Fate (attention, National Comics lawyers!) and The Piranha, which bit not only its victims but the dust after three issues, despite a fourth being solicited.
- Warfront, featuring Dynamite Joe, "The Blast Crazy Marine!" (I bet he got yelled at a lot by Sgt. Carter!). A revival of a 1951 series, it lasted four issues in the mid-'60s.
- "Top Secret Adventures of" Spyman. This cyborg agent, only lasted three issues before his battery ran out.
- Jigsaw (lasted two issues despite #3 being advertised in other Harvey mags).
- Unearthly Spectaculars started out #1 featuring a tiger with a man's face and then moved on to the adventures of Jack Q. Frost (the Q was for "quick"). Frost as an object is generally not considered "quick," and this book was cancelled with #3.
- Double-Dare Adventures featureing the B-Man only lasted two issues. That must have stung.
- Not pictured but part of the subline: Will Eisner's The Spirit, which was reprints from the newspaper comics. Like Denny Colt, it had a short life: two issues.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, other Harvey Comics sold just fine and lasted for several more years, all of 'em in what I call the "Harvey Freaks of Nature" line. Do I really need to list 'em for you? Oh, okay. (inhale):
Baby Huey: The Baby Giant, Baby Huey and Papa, Baby Huey Duckland, The Friendly Ghost Casper, TV Casper and Company, Casper and Nightmare, Casper's Ghostland, Hot Stuff: The Little Devil, Hot Stuff Sizzlers, Devil Kids Starring Hot Stuff, Little AUdrey and Melvin, Little Audrey TV Funtime, Little Dot, Little Dot Dotland, Little Lotta, Little Dot's Uncles and Aunts, Little Lotta Foodland (I used to grocery shop there until they went out of business in '72),
Playful Little Audrey, Richie Rich (extra inhale),
Richie Rich Dollars and Cents, Richie Rich Millions, Richie Rich Success Stories (hey, not as many Richie series as I'd thought),
Sad Sack Comics, Sad Sack and the Sarge, Sad Sack Army Life Parade, Sad Sack Laugh Special, Little Sad Sack, Sad Sack's Funny Friends, Sad Sad Sack, Spooky, Spooky Spooktown, Tuff Ghosts Starring Spooky, Wendy: The Good Little Witch, and (whew!)
Wendy Witch World.
COLLECT 'EM ALL!
Anyway, you can see why Harvey
was trying to increase its market with superhero and action comics, but the only Harvey book that premiered in 1966 that was not of that initiative was the teen comedy
Bunny, which lasted another ten years and 21 (sporadic) issues.
cover of Bunny #1 (Harvey, December 1966), script by Warren Harvey, pencils and inks by Hy Eisman, letters by Joe Rosen, logo design by Otto Pirkola
"Harvey Comics '66! You Can't Blame Us for Trying™!"
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