“Casper the Friendly Ghost" is to be rebooted as a comic book series that will also include other classic Harvey Comics characters.
What do we know about the upcoming comic?
The series has the name “Harvey Hits,” which is the name of the original comic book series that featured the character from 1957–1967. That said, spin-offs based on the Harvey characters appeared in print well until the 1990’s.
The creative team is said to include Cesare Asaro, Geoffrey Golden, Charlie La Greca, Eric Jones, Dan Parent, Kirstie Shepherd, Landry Walker, Franco Aureliani, and Art Baltazar.
In a released statement, Baltazar claimed the project took around “two years in the making.”
In addition to Casper, other popular Harvey characters are expected to appear, such as Wendy the Good Little Witch, Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, Hot Stuff the Little Devil, Richie Rich, Little Audrey, Little Dot, Little Lotta, and Baby Huey. According to a press release, stories will involve Casper being invited to attend school and his friend Hot Stuff getting sick.
The first issue of the upcoming series will be released to stores in May.
The Harvey characters have come and gone more than once over the years
“Casper” predates the Harvey Comics, first originating in the 1945 animated short, "The Friendly Ghost." Many supporting characters that are associated with the character, however, originated in the comics, including Casper’s girlfriend, Wendy, a good witch, and his three wicked uncles, the Ghostly Trio, as the original animated shorts based around the character showed that Casper had a mother and father, although the three are partially based on characters from the 1956 short "Fright from Wrong." The comics also first downplayed the element of Casper being the spirit of a dead child, portraying ghosts as a fantasy creature, despite early cartoons showing Casper having a grave or living in a cemetary.
Over the years, the character had been rebooted as a 1960’s animated series, this time based on the comics, two live-actions films, one which reunited the character with Wendy, a television series based on the films, and, most recently, CGI adaptations.
“Richie Rich” is also one the more popular Harvey characters, most recently being rebooted as a Netflix series. In addition, the character was also adapted into his own animated series and live-action films.
