More Harvey Hits.
I realize that I’ve been on some kind of weird Harvey Comics trip lately, but when you get right down to it, that’s really the only kind of Harvey Comics trip you can be on, given how downright peculiar Harvey strips can be. So, for today’s funnybook follies, I’m taking a brief look at some odd things in Harvey books that have caught my eye lately.
First off is this Richie Rich story, where a burglar fixes it that the Riches’ robot maid Irona appears “sick,” and while she’s away recuperating, the burglar will arrange to have his own robot maid accomplice take her place. Anyway, the robot is rushed off to a hospital, apparently owned by the Rich family (and not just intended for rich people, though that probably can be inferred):
However, it’s not just a hospital, mind you! It’s a towering hospital…just for robots!
Now here, in this Little Dot story, we have Dot being given a tour of a large department store by her aunt. At the beginning of the story, Dot spots a sign warning shoplifters that they will indeed be prosecuted. However, thoughout the tour, Dot’s aunt keeps taking items, eating snacks, etc etc without paying a cent. A sample:
It all turns out okay in the end, though, as Dot’s aunt is in fact the owner of the department store! Setting aside that Dot probably should have known that from the start, there is still the ethical question of the aunt’s behavior. Yes, she does own the store, but isn’t stealing from your own store still stealing? At the very least, isn’t it a bad example for the employees? It certainly must be confusing the issue for poor, impressionable Litte Dot.
Back to Richie Rich — the one thing that really bugged me about Richie Rich, aside from his obviously untreated case of macrocephaly, is how he lords his wealth over his poor country friends Freckles and Pee Wee:
Someday the proletariat will rise up and overthrow their capitalist oppressors.
Harvey has an important lesson for kids in this next Richie Rich story, in which Richie’s dad Mr. Rich is replaced by an evil duplicate. However, Richie has a cunning plan as to how to tell them apart:
Yes, only the morally just can handle smoking.
And lastly, the origin of Dr. Manhattan from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, as reenacted by Baby Huey in Harvey Hits Comics #3 (March 1987):
For comparison, selected panels from Watchmen #4 (December 1986):
