Excerpt from a comic strip presentation book (1964).
Robert C. Harvey (known as R.C. Harvey) received no formal training in cartooning and very little in writing, other than actual experience on the campus newspaper at the University of Colorado, from which he graduated in 1959. Harvey's first encounter with magazine cartooning was in college, where he drew cartoons for the campus humor magazine. It was there that he first used a tiny drawing of a spectacled rabbit, 'Harvey the Rabbit', as his signature. After college, Harvey freelanced at cartooning in New York City for a time, then went into the Navy. Upon discharge after three years, Harvey turned to teaching. Later, he found work as convention manager for a teachers' association.
Excerpt from a comic strip presentation book.
In addition to columns and articles for numerous comics-related publications, R.C. Harvey authored two theoretical and historical tomes about cartooning: 'The Art of the Funnies' (1994, an "aesthetic history" of the comic strip), and 'The Art of the Comic Book' (1996). He also collected and edited two volumes of 'Cartoons of the Roaring Twenties' for Fantagraphics Books (1991 and 1992), and contributed biographies of cartoonists to the 'American National Biography'.
Comic strip from a comic strip presentation book.
He was associate editor (for comic strip content) of the short-lived scholarly journal, 'Inks: Cartoon and Comic Art Studies' (1994-1997). Harvey also produced over 150 biographies for a collection of cartoonists' self-caricatures, 'A Gallery of Rogues: Cartoonists' Self-caricatures', and wrote the monograph 'The Genius of Winsor McCay' (1998). In addition, he was guest curator of an exhibition of original comic strip art for the Frye Art Museum in Seattle (September-October 1998) and wrote the accompanying catalogue, 'Children of the Yellow Kid'.
His books about comic artists include 'Accidental Ambassador Gordo: The Comic Strip Art of Gus Arriola' (2000), 'Conversations with Milton Caniff' (2002) and 'Meanwhile... A Biography of Milton Caniff" (2007) as well as a collection of the cartoons of T.S. Sullivant. Harvey continues to produce a regular column in The Comics Journal and an occasional column in The Comics Buyer's Guide, as well as articles on individual cartoonists whom he interviews for a quarterly magazine, Cartoonist PROfiles.
