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73-496: Harvey Comics' most notable characters are Casper the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich . Harvey's mascot is named Joker, a harlequin jack-in-the-box character. He was also the mascot of the cartoon shorts series Noveltoons which brought many Harvey Comics characters to life; he also appeared as a cameo in the ending scene of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit , alongside many other famous cartoon characters. Harvey Comics

146-452: A $ 78,000 agreement with Harvey to produce The New Casper Cartoon Show , they also sold their pre-March 1962 library of cartoons to Harvey for $ 1. By the early 1980s, Marvel Comics was in negotiations with Harvey Comics to assume publication of some of their characters. Harvey editor Sid Jacobson , along with the other Harvey staff, were interviewed by Mike Hobson, Marvel's group vice-president of publishing (de facto publisher). As part of

219-513: A DVD set titled Casper The Friendly Ghost: The Complete Collection 1945-1963 which contains The Friendly Ghost , There's Good Boos To-Night , A Haunting We Will Go , 55 theatrical cartoons, and all 26 episodes of The New Casper Cartoon Show . Several video games were based on the 1995 film for PC, Super Nintendo Entertainment System , Game Boy , Sega Saturn , 3DO , PlayStation , and Game Boy Color . In subsequent years Windows 95 and Game Boy Advance games were released serving as sequels to

292-535: A Hollywood starlet-superhero, which was published into the 1950s. Harvey began a shift to licensed characters when in 1942 it took over as the radio hero Green Hornet 's publisher from Holyoke after six issues. Harvey added additional titles, such that most of their titles were licensed. Licensed characters included Joe Palooka , Blondie , Dick Tracy , and other newspaper strip characters. The company ultimately became best known for characters it published in comics from 1950s onward, particularly those it licensed from

365-604: A couple of other titles. In 1994 Marvel took over publishing and distribution for HCE. In addition, Montgomery himself began selling a package of older cartoons featuring the characters Harvey had purchased from Paramount to local stations. With Claster Television serving as his distributor, Montgomery launched Casper & Friends in 1990. After the rerun package was pulled in 1994, Montgomery teamed with Carbunkle Cartoons and Film Roman respectively for two new animated series based on Harvey properties. The first, produced by Carbunkle and launching in 1994, featured Baby Huey and

438-581: A four-part storyline, "The Man from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E.", beginning with Archie Comics issue #610. DeFalco would return to DC Comics in August 2011 with the plot for a Superman one-shot , Superman Beyond, and in 2012 as guest writer on Nightwing and helping on the Ravagers for DC's The New 52 line. DeFalco began scripting the Superboy series over Scott Lobdell 's plots with issue #6 (April 2012) and became

511-410: A ghost to join his friend Casper in the afterlife . These three cartoons were initially billed as Noveltoons before Paramount started the official Casper the Friendly Ghost series in 1950, and ran the theatrical releases until summer 1959. Most of the entries in the series were relatively the same: Casper (now slightly thinner than the pudgy figure that appeared in the earlier cartoons) escapes from

584-627: A handful of new cartoons produced for television. Casper the Friendly Ghost , who had been Famous' most popular original character, now became Harvey's top draw. Associated characters such as Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost , The Ghostly Trio , Casper's horse Nightmare, Hot Stuff the Little Devil , and Wendy the Good Little Witch were added to the Harvey line. In 1963, when Paramount entered into

657-412: A live-action adaptation of the series by Universal Pictures : Casper (1995), to where he became the first computer-generated character to star in a film. He would later appear in four direct-to-video and made-for-TV follow-up films. Casper was developed by Seymour Reit and Joe Oriolo , the former devising the idea for the character and the latter providing illustrations. Initially intended as

730-412: A new Casper series for Fox Kids called The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper , based on the 1995 feature, that lasted two years and was never seen on television again after 1998. In 2009, MoonScoop Group , in association with Classic Media , TF1 and DQ, produced a TV show named Casper's Scare School , based on the film of the same name . In 2020, Casper appeared in a supporting role in

803-424: A page from a map of Hollywood giving him a clue on where to start his quest to find his friends and the three missing pieces for Kibosh's imprisoning device to get them back home safely. The game is played across ten levels set around the world with 40 friendship crystals on each level to collect in order to advance to the bonus level at the end. Developed by Lucky Chicken Games and published by TDK Mediactive , it

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876-412: A result of a lawsuit between Harvey and Columbia Pictures in 1984, a court determined that a lapsed copyright had allowed Fatso, Casper's sidekick, to enter the public domain. Former Disney researcher Gregory S. Brown later discovered that Harvey had failed to renew other copyrights covering the company's ghosts, including Casper. As of 2016, Comcast (the parent company of NBCUniversal ) currently owns

949-522: A weekly comic strip and did a few short stories", and after graduation "got in touch with the various comic book companies", which led to him beginning his comics career as an editorial assistant with Archie Comics in mid-1972. During his tenure with Archie Comics, he "initiated and developed the Archie Comics Digest Series , which is still being produced today and remains the company's most profitable publishing series". Learning fast, DeFalco

1022-492: A wholly owned subsidiary of Harvey Publications, Inc. In 1985 the Marvel imprint Star Comics published a title called Royal Roy . Harvey sued Star for copyright infringement, claiming that Roy was a blatant copy of Richie Rich . Veteran Harvey writer-artist Lennie Herman had created Royal Roy for Star Comics. Herman died in 1983 before the first issue of Royal Roy was published. The Royal Roy comic ended after six issues and

1095-570: Is frightened of Casper, but later welcomes him into the family after he unintentionally frightens off a greedy landlord, who, unwilling to own a "haunted" house, tears up the mortgage and gives her the house outright. The short ends with the mother kissing Bonnie, Johnny, and Casper as she sends them off to school, with Casper wearing clothing as if he were a living child. Casper appeared in two more subsequent cartoons, There's Good Boos To-Night and A Haunting We Will Go . There's Good Boos To-Night differs wildly from later Casper cartoons: although

1168-450: Is implied that he is naturally visible to humans as a white creature. When Reit was away on military service during World War II before the book was released, Oriolo sold the rights to the book to Paramount Pictures ' Famous Studios animation division for a total of $ 175. This one-time payment was all that he received, missing out on a share of the revenue earned from the films, comic books and merchandise to come. The Friendly Ghost ,

1241-475: Is lowered, scaring away the mourners. The funeral scene was storyboarded but cut before being animated. Numerous Casper cartoons were released on home video by Universal Studios (via MCA Inc. ), which also adopted the friendly ghost into a live-action feature film titled Casper in 1995, where he and his wicked uncles, the Ghostly Trio , were rendered via computer animation , which initially created

1314-532: Is the author of over a dozen graphic novels , several hundred comic book stories, several dozen cyber-comics, three novels and six children's books, including the best-selling Dorling Kindersley guides to Marvel comics characters. These include: Spider-Man: The Ultimate Guide , Avengers: The Ultimate Guide , Fantastic Four: The Ultimate Guide and Hulk : The Incredible Guide . For Titan Books he has compiled three volumes in their "Comic Creators On..." series of essays and thoughts on Marvel characters (Spider-Man,

1387-628: The New Warriors with artist Ron Frenz and the spin-off Thunderstrike , as well as Fantastic Four with artist Paul Ryan , and comics for Marvel children's imprint Star Comics . Defalco was one of the writers on the " Maximum Carnage " storyline in 1993. His resignation as editor-in-chief coincided with a run on The Spectacular Spider-Man (#215–229 Aug. 1994 – Oct. 1995), after which he returned to The Amazing Spider-Man in January 1996 for issues #407–439. During this time he helped co-write

1460-616: The Saturday morning cartoon series Casper and the Angels (an animated takeoff on two live-action hit shows Charlie's Angels and CHiPS ) in the autumn of 1979, all on NBC . Also featured on the NBC version was a big ghost named Hairy Scary (voiced by John Stephenson). None of Casper's original co-stars appeared in the show. Between 1990 and 1994, Casper appeared in The Harveytoons Show which

1533-410: The " Clone Saga " which revealed (temporarily, at least) that Peter Parker was a clone of the original that had been active since 1975. Peter would be replaced by the original Spider-Man under the alias " Ben Reilly ". Following several changes of creators and fan reaction, this was soon reversed. DeFalco created Spider-Girl , who first appeared in an issue of What If? which led to him writing

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1606-570: The "Scare Bud" episode of Harvey Girls Forever! , a series based on Harvey Comics characters. A new live-action television series is in the works at Peacock , co-produced between Universal Content Productions and DreamWorks Animation with Wu Kai-yu writing and executive producing. The Famous Studios version of Casper was one of many characters considered to appear in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit . Casper would have appeared at Marvin Acme's funeral, rising from Acme's grave as his coffin

1679-504: The Fantastic Four and the X-Men, between 2004 and 2006). DeFalco has personally created and developed over three dozen characters that have all been licensed for television, toys, T-shirts, posters, trading cards and other merchandise, and has written Khan and The Phantom for Moonstone Books . In April 2010, Archie Comics announced DeFalco would be returning to his roots, to write

1752-650: The Friendly Ghost Casper the Friendly Ghost is a fictional character who serves as the protagonist of the Famous Studios theatrical animated cartoon series of the same name. He is a translucent ghost who is pleasant and personable, but often criticized by his three wicked uncles, the Ghostly Trio . The character was featured in 55 theatrical cartoons titled The Friendly Ghost from 1945 to 1959. The character has been featured in comic books published by Harvey Comics since 1952, and Harvey purchased

1825-651: The MC2 line launched in 1998 including the Spider-Girl ongoing series which ran for 100 issues. Spider-Girl went on to star in Amazing Spider-Girl (30 issues) and the most recent volume, The Spectacular Spider-Girl , making her Marvel's longest-running female star of a solo series. The character also made appearances in Amazing Spider-Man Family #5–8 and Web of Spider-Man vol. 2 #1–7. In early 2009, as

1898-633: The Spectrals by Arden Entertainment. Much like The Man of Steel and Batman: Year One did with their respective characters, it revamped Casper and several other Harvey characters for a new audience. After selling 6,400 copies of the first comic, the last two issues were published in 2010. Comic book publisher American Mythology picked up the Casper the Friendly Ghost title, and has also published Casper & Wendy and Casper & Hot Stuff . Casper has starred in five television shows: After Harvey bought

1971-491: The Spider-Girl series was drawing to a close, DeFalco said it might be some of his last work for Marvel as he was in danger of being typecast because of his long run with the characters. The bad news about working on the same thing for that many years is that editors start to believe that it is the only thing you can do. So the only way I can get non-Spider-related work is to work for other companies. The Spider-Girl series

2044-579: The Spider-Man titles, which he edited throughout the early 1980s. DeFalco worked closely with toy manufacturer Hasbro in the early 1980s, heading the creative team that "produced the backstory and dossiers that served as the basis for the relaunch of the phenomenally successful G.I. Joe toy line and animated television show ", in 1985. As part of this relaunch, Marvel produced a comic titled G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero in June 1982. DeFalco personally edited

2117-522: The United States and TDK Mediactive in Europe, this game was released in 2000 on PlayStation. It is a mostly 2D side-scrolling platform game with occasional forward and backward movements. The evil Kibosh has invented a device to send Casper's human friends to a place where they "would not have a ghost of a chance of being found" and has hypnotized the Ghostly Trio into doing his bidding. However Casper finds

2190-519: The afterlife of a regular ghost because he finds that scaring people can be tiresome year after year, tries to find friends but inadvertently scares almost everyone, and finally finds a (cute little) friend, whom he saves from some sort of fate, leading to his acceptance by those initially scared of him. Animation historian Leonard Maltin , in his book Of Mice and Magic , said that Casper was "the most monotonous character to invade cartoonland since Mighty Mouse . It seemed as it every Casper cartoon followed

2263-414: The animation company Famous Studios , a unit of Paramount Pictures , starting in 1951. These include Little Audrey , Casper the Friendly Ghost , Baby Huey , and Herman and Katnip . Harvey also licensed popular characters from newspaper comic strips , such as Mutt and Jeff and Sad Sack . In addition, Harvey developed such original properties as Richie Rich , Little Dot and Little Lotta . While

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2336-470: The art, with no money changing hands. For years, the television distribution rights to the Harveytoons library were licensed to Worldvision Enterprises . Worldvision would hold distribution rights to many earlier Famous Studios cartoons (plus most of the cartoons by Fleischer Studios ) for a short time, until being absorbed by the television division of Paramount Pictures , which originally distributed

2409-460: The basis for a children's storybook, there was at first little interest in their idea and the book went unpublished. In the original Harveytoons animation, Casper has been seen standing next to a grave inscribed with "Casper", that supports the theory he is indeed a ghost. Originally, stories have shown that his visibility is due to wearing a sheet. In the Casper live-action film, this is not shown and it

2482-624: The cartoons. Universal Studios , which owns the pre-1950 Paramount sound features through its television division , once held video rights to the Harvey-owned cartoons, until 2001 when Classic Media obtained the animated catalog. In 2016, rights to the Harvey Comics properties returned to Universal when they acquired Classic Media's parent company, DreamWorks Animation , who later produced Harvey Street Kids (later renamed Harvey Girls Forever! ) based on Harvey Comics characters. Casper

2555-480: The character outright in 1959. Casper became one of Harvey's most popular characters, headlining several comic book titles. Following Harvey's purchase of the character, he appeared in five television series: Matty's Funday Funnies (1959–1961), The New Casper Cartoon Show (1963–1970), Casper and the Angels (1979), The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper (1996–1998) and Casper's Scare School (2009–2012). The character made his theatrical film debut in

2628-628: The company tried to diversify the comics it published, with brief forays in the 1950s and 1960s into superhero, suspense, horror, western and other forms in such imprints as Harvey Thriller and Thrill Adventure , children's comics were the bulk of its output. In July 1958, Harvey purchased the October 1950–December 1959 Famous Studios cartoons (including character rights and rights to the cartoon shorts, but excluding Popeye ). The Famous cartoons were repackaged and distributed to television as Harveytoons , and Harvey continued production on new comics and

2701-496: The copyrights on early Casper stories and the "limited ways to draw a figure of a cartoon ghost". In 1989, Harvey was sold to Jeffrey Montgomery's HMH Communications, located in Santa Monica, California . It was renamed Harvey Comics Entertainment ( HCE ), publishing reprints in the early 1990s as Harvey Classics . In 1993 the company created two imprints, Nemesis Comics and Ultracomics , to publish Ultraman comics, as well as

2774-533: The end of the first five levels is a bonus stage in which Casper must collect as many jewels as he can while avoiding the Trio's lightning which is chasing him. Developed by Data Design Interactive for PlayStation 2 and Nikitova Games for the Nintendo DS, it is based on the animated film and TV series of the same name released in 2008 and 2009. Developed in 2009 by The Code Monkeys for Wii , Nintendo DS and iOS . As

2847-448: The film, Casper: A Spirited Beginning and Casper Meets Wendy (which introduced Hilary Duff as fellow Harvey Comics character Wendy the Good Little Witch ), were made. They were followed by Casper's Haunted Christmas (starring Spooky and Poil from the comics), and Casper's Scare School , which were done entirely in CGI with no live-action elements. In 2001, Harvey Entertainment

2920-596: The film. Developed by Sound Source Interactive , published by WayForward Technologies and released in 1998 for PC, it is based on the film of the same name and is similar in format to Disney's Activity Center . Set at Ghost Central Station, the player earns Casper coins by completing Casper's Spinning Squares, Stretch's Memory Game, Fatso's Kitchen, Stinkie's Goo Toss and Snivel's Mix & Match. The player must collect at least 15 Casper coins from these five games to unlock Kibosh's Magic Puzzle. Developed by Realtime Associates , published by Sound Source Interactive in

2993-440: The first Noveltoon to feature Casper, was released by Paramount in 1945 with a few differences from the book. In the cartoon adaptation, Casper is a cute ghost-child with a New York accent who inhabits a haunted house along with a community of adult ghosts who delight in scaring the living. Casper, in contrast, is a nonconformist among ghosts: he would prefer to make friends with people. He packs up his belongings and goes out into

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3066-496: The first CGI lead character in a film. The film constructed a back-story for the character and is the only time in the series that the question of his death has been addressed. According to the film, Casper was a twelve-year-old boy living in Whipstaff Manor with his inventor father J.T. McFadden until he died from pneumonia after playing out in the cold until it was past nightfall. Two live-action direct-to-video follow-ups to

3139-515: The first six issues (handing over to Denny O'Neil in January 1983), as well as assorted issues of the G.I. Joe series' throughout the 1980s. The core G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero series would run for 155 issues over the next 12 years. DeFalco was "part of the creative team that introduced the Transformers to the American public" in 1984. In August 1983, DeFalco wrote the first four issues of

3212-439: The full writer with issue #12 (October 2012). His Superboy run ended with #18, which was co-scripted by Tony Lee. He also wrote Legion Lost #0 and 6–18 and the final four issues (#17–20) of Savage Hawkman . In December 2016, Archie Comics launched a new ongoing Reggie & Me series by DeFalco and artist Sandy Jarrell. In 2021, Apex Comics Group launched a successful crowdfunding campaign for The R.I.G.H.T. Project ,

3285-528: The lawsuit was dropped. In 1986, Harvey resumed publication under the leadership of Alan Harvey (Alfred's oldest son), focusing on a few core titles, digests , and reprints. In 1987, Harvey sued Columbia Pictures , for $ 50 million, claiming that the Ghostbusters logo used in the 1984 film was too reminiscent of Fatso from the Casper series. The court ruled in Columbia's favor, due to Harvey's failure to renew

3358-730: The longest serving individuals to hold that post. The only Editors-in-Chief with longer service than him were Stan Lee (1941–1942, 1944–1972), Shooter (1978–1987), and Joe Quesada (2000–2011). Early in DeFalco's run as editor-in-chief, executive editor Mark Gruenwald remarked, "Tom does not seem to have as strong a personal vision for Marvel [as Shooter], and as a result he's more open to other people's visions. It remains to be seen if that's good or bad." In an interview with The Comic Book Gazette , DeFalco described his experiences as editor-in-chief as being "A lot like those old Bullpen Bulletins comic strips, but with significantly more yelling!" He

3431-592: The names of Lorne-Harvey Publications and Re-Collections . In late 2000, Alan Harvey sued Steve Geppi over his 1984 acquisition of the Sad Sack original art, charging that Geppi had plundered Harvey's warehouses. Geppi countersued, claiming that he had legal title to the original art. The suit was settled in late 2002; at the time of the settlement, the New York Supreme Court had dismissed Harvey's claims against Geppi. The settlement agreement allowed Geppi to keep

3504-535: The next twenty years of his career. There he wrote two issues of The Avengers and the final five issues of Machine Man plus a Machine Man issue of Marvel Team-Up , before launching Dazzler in March 1981. DeFalco wrote Marvel Two-In-One stories featuring team ups with the Thing from 1981-1982. DeFalco later wrote a Machine Man limited series in 1984, with art by Herb Trimpe and Barry Windsor-Smith . DeFalco

3577-572: The pages of Amazing . DeFalco co-created the Rose , Black Fox , and Silver Sable during his tenure on the series. DeFalco and Frenz were both removed from The Amazing Spider-Man by then Spider-editor Jim Owsley , who stated that they had chronically failed to meet deadlines. DeFalco and Frenz both state they met their deadlines more diligently than any other Marvel creative team at the time, and that Owsley caused them to miss deadlines by repeatedly changing his production schedules. Issue #285 (Feb 1987)

3650-410: The process, Jacobson created several new characters which were well received by Hobson and effectively sealed the deal. Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter appointed editor Tom DeFalco as executive editor to coordinate with the Harvey staff, who were hired by Marvel. On the day Marvel was set to take over the Harvey publications, Harvey Comics pulled out of the deal due to an internal disagreement among

3723-815: The rights to Casper and many other Famous properties in 1959 (including Herman and Katnip , Little Audrey , and Baby Huey ), they began broadcasting the post-September 1950 theatrical Famous shorts on a television show sponsored by Mattel Toys titled Matty's Funday Funnies on ABC in 1959 which introduced the Barbie doll to the public. The other Famous produced Casper cartoons had already been acquired by television distributor U.M. & M. TV Corporation in 1956. U.M. & M. retitled just "A Haunting We Will Go", but credited "Featuring Casper The Friendly Ghost" as "Featuring Casper's Friendly Ghost". New cartoons were created for The New Casper Cartoon Show in 1963, also on ABC. The original Casper cartoons were syndicated under

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3796-412: The rights to Casper the Friendly Ghost through its subsidiary, DreamWorks Classics ( DreamWorks Animation ). Tom DeFalco Tom DeFalco (born June 26, 1950) is an American comic book writer and editor well known for his association with Marvel Comics , with long runs on Amazing Spider-Man , Thor , and Fantastic Four . While in college, DeFalco "wrote for a few local newspapers,

3869-412: The rights to the character and other related characters in addition to regaining the rights to Casper's Haunted Christmas (which Universal itself originally released in late 2000). However, Casper Meets Wendy is currently owned by The Walt Disney Company through BVS Entertainment and 20th Television . In 2019, Casper made an appearance in a GEICO commercial. In 2011, Shout! Factory released

3942-421: The rights to the character outright. Casper went on to headline a large number of comic book series, as well as appearing in back up stories and guest appearances in other titles. The Casper series inspired three popular spin-offs: Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost , Wendy the Good Little Witch , and The Ghostly Trio . Casper's titles include: In 2009, a new Casper comic was published, called Casper and

4015-520: The same story line, with only minor variations.” Casper was first published in comics form in August 1949 by St. John Publications , running for five issues until September 1951. In 1952, Alfred Harvey , founder and publisher of Harvey Comics began producing Casper comic books. Casper first appeared in Harvey Comics Hits #61 (Oct 1952), and then moved to a solo book with Casper the Friendly Ghost #7 (December 1952). In 1959, Harvey purchased

4088-476: The second, produced by Film Roman, was a new Richie Rich cartoon launched in 1996; a previous series had been done without Harvey's involvement other than licensing the character to Hanna-Barbera . During this period, Montgomery sold 20% of the company to MCA Inc. , parent company of Universal Studios for $ 3 million. Universal licensed the characters for use in its theme parks. Montgomery also optioned Richie Rich and Casper for two feature films: Richie Rich

4161-415: The theme of Casper trying to find a friend and failing in these attempts before succeeding also occurs in later cartoons, the tone of this short turns remarkably dark when a hunter and his dogs appear, chasing the little fox cub named Ferdie that Casper has befriended. Although Casper scares the hunter and dogs away, Casper discovers Ferdie dead after a harrowing chase scene. Happily, however, Ferdie returns as

4234-534: The third series of Red Sonja and after shedding his Spider-Man editorial duties to Danny Fingeroth , he took over from Roger Stern as writer of The Amazing Spider-Man . The two collaborated on April–May's #251–252 (the Secret Wars crossover issues), before DeFalco took over fully with #253, for a two-year run, chiefly in collaboration with artist Ron Frenz . Concurrent with editing Jim Shooter 's Secret Wars , DeFalco introduced Spider-Man's "black costume" in

4307-474: The title Harveytoons (initially repackaged as Casper and Company ) in 1963 and ran continuously until the mid-90s. Casper has remained popular in reruns and merchandising. Hanna-Barbera Productions also gave Casper two holiday specials, Casper's First Christmas (which also starred Yogi Bear , Huckleberry Hound , Snagglepuss , Quick Draw McGraw , Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy ) and Casper's Halloween Special (aka Casper Saves Halloween ), and also

4380-466: The two remaining Harvey brothers, Alfred and Leon. Harvey would cease publishing its comics in 1982 . In summer 1984, Steve Geppi (owner of Diamond Comic Distributors and Geppi's Comic World ) paid $ 50,000 for, among other properties, Harvey's entire archive of original art from the Harvey comic Sad Sack . Geppi made this agreement with Steve Harvey , who at the time was president of Harvey Publications Inc., as well as president of Sad Sack Inc. ,

4453-542: The world, hoping to find friends. However, the animals that he meets (a rooster, a mole, a cat, a mouse named Herman , and a group of hens) take one horrified look at him, scream: "A ghost!" and run off in the other direction. Distraught, Casper unsuccessfully attempts to commit suicide (apparently forgetting that he is already dead) by lying down on a railway track before an oncoming train, before he meets two children named Bonnie and Johnny who become his friends. The children's mother, apparently widowed and impoverished, at first

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4526-557: Was a key member of the management team that took Marvel public , and under his leadership, Marvel's net profits from publishing rose by over 500%. Under DeFalco's guidance, Marvel entered a phase of expansion that provided an opportunity for "new talent" to enter the comic book industry, and released a number of new titles with original characters. After clashing with the company's upper management, DeFalco resigned in 1994. During his tenure as editor-in-chief, DeFalco had continued to write as well, with noted runs on Thor where he created

4599-433: Was acquired by Classic Media which, until 2012, licensed the Harvey properties including Casper. Casper made a cameo in a MetLife commercial along with several other cartoon characters in 2012. Later that same year, Classic Media was acquired by DreamWorks Animation , which in turn would be acquired by NBCUniversal in 2016, and thus Universal Studios , the producer of the original live-action feature film, now manages

4672-468: Was cancelled in 2010. In 2009, DeFalco revisited the "Clone Saga" with the six-part mini series Spider-Man: The Clone Saga , based on the original outline of this controversial storyline. As guest writer he contributed two issues to Sensational Spider-Man vol. 2 in 2012, as well as stories for Spider-Ham 25th Anniversary Special #1 (2010), Spider-Verse Team-Up #3 (2015) and the one-shot Sensational Spider-Man: Self-Improvement in 2019. DeFalco

4745-469: Was founded by the Harvey brothers—Alfred, Leon and Robert—in the 1940s after first acquiring an existing—faltering—title from Brookwood Publications, Speed Comics . The title's headliners were Shock Gibson and Captain Freedom , a patriotic hero like The Shield. Harvey added more anthologies, including Champion Comics and Pocket Comics. From the new titles only one would stay around for a while: The Black Cat ,

4818-689: Was known as Casper and Friends in the UK. This show featured other Harvey Comics characters and series including: Little Audrey , Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare , Baby Huey , Herman and Katnip , Buzzy the Crow , Modern Madcaps , Possum Pearl, Professor Schmatlz, Jeeper and Creeper and others. The show consisted of Famous Studios -produced cartoons from 1950 to 1964 and each episode of the series included three full cartoons and one "ToonTake" segment. In 1996, Amblin Entertainment and Universal Cartoon Studios created

4891-566: Was ousted from HCE in 1997, and in 2001, the company sold its Harvey properties and rights to the Harvey name to Classic Media . HCE was renamed Sunland Entertainment Co. Sunland produced additional films and distributed its library of 150 films and 60 television episodes. In 2000, Harvey bought out PM Entertainment , a home video and film distributor, and after selling it to Classic Media , Roger Burlage held on to PM. The rights to Sad Sack , Black Cat , and certain other Harvey characters are still owned by Alan Harvey, and have been published under

4964-511: Was released in 1994 and was a financial flop, while Casper , which was released the following year, became a massive hit. Montgomery also struck a publishing and distribution deal with Marvel Comics , which led Marvel to publish Casper titles, including an adaptation of the 1995 live-action Casper film. Two issues of an ongoing Casper title were published in May 1997, followed by the short-lived Casper and Friends Magazine (May–July 1997). Montgomery

5037-522: Was released in 2007 on PlayStation 2. It is a 3D game in which Casper has legs and is affected by gravity though he can glide, unlike his flying ability in Spirit Dimensions . The Ghostly Trio have kidnapped Wendy the Good Little Witch in an attempt to use her magic to create a potion that would give them the power to rule Ghostland. Wendy manages to use her magic to get the message across to Casper who must find his way through six levels to rescue her. At

5110-608: Was soon writing for the flagship title Archie as well as for other titles including Scooby-Doo and Josie and the Pussycats . DeFalco briefly wrote for DC Comics in the late 1970s. He scripted several Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane stories for the Superman Family title; the final issue of Starfire (Oct.–Nov. 1977); and a Cain story in House of Mystery #258 (May–June 1978). DeFalco then moved to Marvel, where he would spend

5183-453: Was the chief designer and author for Dazzler , and later became one of the writers for the Spider-Man comic book series while at the same time rising through the editorial ranks. While writing Dazzler , he wrote a couple of issues of Marvel Team-Up , before taking over from Dennis O'Neil as editor of that title, as well as assuming editorial duties on Ghost Rider , What If...? and

5256-624: Was the first 3D game , to have a movable game camera, based on Casper. It was released in 2001 for PlayStation 2 and in 2002 for GameCube . The evil Kibosh has taken over the Spirit World and is intent on also taking over the mortal world. Meanwhile, Wendy the Good Little Witch summons Casper, the only remaining free ghost, and opens the portals to the Spirit Dimensions to help in their only chance to defeat Kibosh. Developed by Data Design Interactive and published by Blast! Entertainment , it

5329-509: Was their final issue, after which Owsley assumed writing duties. While writing Amazing , DeFalco continued editing various comics. After co-writing two issues of Fantastic Four (#301–302; April–May 1987), DeFalco took over writing duties on Thor with #383 in September. DeFalco became Marvel's tenth editor-in-chief on April 15, 1987. This change was effective in comics cover-dated November 1987. He served from 1987 to 1994, making him one of

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