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Tweak says, "I'm so sorry."

peur_evol (peur_evol) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-04-07 11:29:00

Entry tags:

publisher: harvey comics

MORE HARVEY COMICS SILLINESS.......

Richie Rich, the poor little rich boy made his debut as a backup feature in "Little Dot", in 1953. Although artist Warren Kremer and Harvey Editor Sid Jacobson both lay claim that they created the character (and in the case of Warren, named him after his son), the realities of the situation point to Harvey Comics founder, Alfred Harvey as Richie's creator.
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from RICHIE RICH #8, January 1962

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	cricharddavies 2009-04-07 11:52 am UTC (link)
	Thank you for illustrating precisely why I hate Richie Rich -- the overwhelming message of this story is "money can buy happiness", making the whole idea of a "poor little rich boy" completely nonsensical. (Reply to this)

	besamim 2009-04-07 12:09 pm UTC (link)
	Ah, the typical gentleman thief. He's really a good sort of chap and cares about the welfare of children. He merely fancies burglary, certainly a worthy gentleman's pursuit. Oh, but Catman? Scratching your face with a gun isn't very smart. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Just remembered: Do you take requests? besamim 2009-04-07 12:11 pm UTC (link)
	Because if you have stories featuring Cadbury I'd love to see one or two. He was always my favourite Harvey character. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re:Do you take requests? peur_evol 2009-04-07 12:21 pm UTC (link)
	Sure. My going rate is five dollars for the request, ten dollars if I actually fill the request. Send payments to: Peur F. Evol c/o the Internet (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Do you take requests? besamim 2009-04-07 12:29 pm UTC (link)
	How about if I set up dangerous and surely illegal traps to catch a wanted burglar, so I can pay you with the reward money? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	kenn_el 2009-04-07 12:46 pm UTC (link)
	Doesn't he still have those scratches in "Secret Six"? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jkcarrier 2009-04-07 12:10 pm UTC (link)
	So, rewarding criminal behavior with a large payoff, in order to get the economy flowing... Richie Rich invented the Federal Bailout! (Reply to this) (Thread)

	besamim 2009-04-07 12:17 pm UTC (link)
	Come to think of it, if Richie was willing to give $20K to the Catman, presumably to keep, then why did he offer merely to loan his friends the measley amount needed to buy new baseball gloves? Wow, I never thought I'd see an example of Richie-dickery, but there you go. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	kenn_el 2009-04-07 12:45 pm UTC (link)
	He respected his friends. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jlroberson 2009-04-07 08:28 pm UTC (link)
	Because he's an utter bastard. This is the answer to any question regarding Richie Rich. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	foxhack 2009-04-07 12:23 pm UTC (link)
	Hey Richie! You look kinda cool! (Reply to this)

	kamino_neko 2009-04-07 04:56 pm UTC (link)
	Richie's eyes in the pre-cut image...Boy's clearly taken a blow to the head. (Reply to this)

	dr_hermes 2009-04-07 10:19 pm UTC (link)
	Even as a little kid in grade school who would read anything he could pin down, I thought Harvey comics were pretty dismal. Sad Sack, Casper, Little Dot, Hot Stuff... not much fun there. The one except of course was a reprint by Harvey of Lee Elias' great Black Cat stories. I need to track that down on eBay or something, they were just right. (Reply to this)

psychop_rex
2009-04-08 03:15 am UTC (link)

Richie Rich annoys me in a way that only someone who has fallen from the faith can be annoyed. I used to buy Harvey comics on a semi-regular basis, and now I can't for the life of me understand why. What on Earth did I see in this annoying little junior mogul? More importantly, what did the other five million or so people see in him? Richie Rich, at one point, was the top-selling comic book character in America - the only character who's had more books out simultaneously bearing his name on the cover is Spider-Man. Am I the only person who finds this flabbergasting? A kid whose only defining characteristic is his wealth, and he outsold EVERYONE else? It must have been a sad period for American comics, is all I can say. Most of the stuff I enjoyed in my childhood I can still enjoy today, but not this.
To give credit where credit is due, though, this IS one of the better Richie Rich stories I've read - probably because it has almost nothing to do with Richie Rich, focusing instead on his Little Rascals-type kid gang. If it weren't for the ending, there would be nothing to distinguish this from any number of other 'kid gang' stories.

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besamim
2009-04-08 06:11 am UTC (link)

But...the crack. The crack! Few comics ever had as much crack as Richie Rich. The WTF inventions (like Reggie Van Dough's "sneer machine"). Richie and Cadbury stopping crooks by dropping a giant cake on their helicopter blade ("Where were you when the cake hit the fan?", says the henchman to his boss. No joke--I couldn't stop laughing.) The Richie Rich/Jackie Jokers film/TV parodies (in their Star Wars send-up, Obi-Wan randomly asks Vader, "Do your men know your middle name is Cecil?").

In short, I loved loved LOVED Richie Rich as a kid because even then I could appreciate crack when I saw it. I've never seen it as some sort of sinister propaganda book promoting unrestrained capitalism or whatever. As I commented in a previous Harvey post, I was a damn fool to throw out those comics later on. (The examples I quoted above are all from memories of 25-30 years ago.)

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psychop_rex
2009-04-08 04:07 pm UTC (link)

I suppose you have a point - Richie does tend to live in a fairly ludicrous world - but you must admit that the character himself is just blah. Mind you, this is the case with a number of characters - Tintin, Dick Tracy, Mickey Mouse - but generally speaking, those characters have exciting enough adventures and are surrounded by an interesting enough supporting cast that their personal ho-humishness can be overlooked. Richie has none of that - he may live in an unusual and unpredictable world, which can lead to some interesting situations, but he doesn't really have exciting adventures - or, at any rate, not enough of them to keep things interesting - and his supporting cast is largely as blah as he is, comprised largely of one-note characters designed to keep the story rolling (his dad is rich and fatherly and smokes a pipe, his mom is rich and motherly and boring, Cadbury the butler is butlerly to the point of mania, Freckles is... freckley, Reggie is mean, the inventor guy is an inventor guy, the chef is the very model of a chef, etc., etc.). The one possible exception to this would be Irona, the temperamental robot maid - she IS pretty interesting, but we never saw nearly enough of her.
As someone who tends to focus primarily on character and story, all these single-purpose characters annoy me. A few funny lines and wacky inventions aren't enough to make up for that, the potential for crack (or, as I prefer to think of it 'Mnuh?') regardless.
Mind you, I don't want to stomp all over your childhood - I'll freely grant that there must be SOMETHING there to draw that much attention; I just haven't the faintest idea what it is. And you obviously read a lot more of the character than I - I've only read a few issues. So maybe I missed something, but I don't plan on trying to find it, thank you - I'll leave that to others.

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