R. C. Harvey

Robert C. Harvey (May 31, 1937 – July 7, 2022) was an American author, critic and cartoonist. He wrote a number of books on the history and theory of cartooning, with special focus on the comic strip. He also worked as a freelance cartoonist.

Early life Harvey said that he had drawn cartoons since age 7. He received a B.A. at the University of Colorado, where he submitted cartoons to the campus humor magazine, The Flatiron. In 1976, Harvey's columns began appearing in The Comics Journal, where he had a regular column. The 1990s saw publication of Fantagraphics Books' Cartoons of the Roaring Twenties in two volumes, collected and edited by Harvey. Harvey was also a contributor to Oxford University Press' American National Biography, providing biographies of a couple dozen cartoonists. In 1994, Harvey's first work of comics scholarship The Art of the Funnies was published by the University Press of Mississippi with The Art of the Comic Book following in 1996. He served as an associate editor for the journal Inks: Cartoon and Comic Art Studies, taking responsibility for submissions related to the comic strip. In 1998, Harvey was guest curator for the Children of the Yellow Kid exhibition at the Frye Museum in Seattle, for which he also provided the catalogue.

In late June 2022, Harvey fell and broke six ribs, and, on July 7, 2022, he died at age 85 from complications of the fall.