Family Funnies #7
Family Funnies #7 (April 1951) is a snapshot of Harvey's early business model as a King Features Syndicate reprint house, packaging one page each of more than two dozen beloved newspaper strips into a single affordable package aimed squarely at young readers and nostalgic parents. The 'Casper' indexed in this issue is the Casper of Jimmy Murphy's long-running domestic comedy strip Toots and Casper — a character entirely distinct from Casper the Friendly Ghost — and the timing of this issue is historically poignant: the daily Toots and Casper strip ended in November 1951, meaning this issue appeared in the final year of Murphy's celebrated run. The issue also sits near the end of the Family Funnies series itself, which concluded with issue #8 and was rechristened Tiny Tot Funnies from #9 onward.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Family Funnies launched in September 1950 as Harvey's vehicle for licensing and reprinting classic King Features Syndicate newspaper comic strips, with each issue devoted to one page per strip across 36 full-color pages. The contributing cartoonists across the run were a who's-who of mid-century newspaper funnies, including Chic Young (Blondie), George McManus (Bringing Up Father), Jimmy Murphy (Toots and Casper), Lee Falk and Phil Davis (Mandrake the Magician), and Roy Crane (Buz Sawyer), among many others. Harvey published eight issues under the Family Funnies banner before retitling the series.
Trivia · 7 facts
- Published April 1951 by Harvey Comics; part of the Family Funnies series that ran issues #1–8 from September 1950 to April 1951, after which it continued as Tiny Tot Funnies from #9.
- The 'Casper' character indexed for this issue is Casper Hawkins from Jimmy Murphy's newspaper strip Toots and Casper — a domestic comedy husband-and-father character — and is NOT Casper the Friendly Ghost (Harvey did not begin publishing Casper the Friendly Ghost comics until 1952).
- Toots and Casper, created by Jimmy Murphy for the New York American in December 1918 and distributed by King Features Syndicate, was one of the foundational domestic comedy newspaper strips; the daily run ended in November 1951, the same year this issue was published.
- Each issue of Family Funnies reprinted one page per King Features strip; this issue included strips such as Blondie, Popeye, The Katzenjammer Kids, Felix the Cat, Flash Gordon, Bringing Up Father, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Mandrake the Magician, and Toots and Casper, among many others.
- Contributing cartoonists credited across the Family Funnies run include Chic Young, Jimmy Murphy, George McManus, Lee Falk, Phil Davis, Roy Crane, H.H. Knerr, Fred Lasswell, Otto Soglow, and Darrell McClure, representing a broad cross-section of King Features talent.
- The issue runs 36 pages, full color.
- Family Funnies #7 is one of only eight issues published under that title before Harvey restructured and renamed the series.