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Sid Couchey (May 24, 1919 – ) is an American comics writer and artist best-known for his illustration work on the Harvey Comics characters Richie Rich, Little Lotta and Little Dot. His style is known for big, friendly faces, and a keen sense of proportion and design.

[edit] Childhood and early career

Couchey was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He counts Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon and Howard Pyle' among his influences.

After enrolling in the Landon School of Cartooning, a correspondence course out of Cleveland, he continued to practice his craft on the back of his school papers. When he was 14, he wrote to Walt Disney, and "asked when I should come...I've sharpened my pencils...I'm ready". However, Disney told Sid that they weren't quite ready for him.

He graduated from the Art Career School and the Cartoonists and Illlustators School, both located in New York City. For his first job after art school, Couchey assisted John Lehti on the comic strips Tommy of the Big Top and Tales from the Great Book. In his home, Sid has framed an original piece from the Great Book strip, in which he appears as the census taker and scribe for the Pharaoh.

[edit] Harvey Comics (late 1950’s – 1980’s)

     Sid Couchey's "big break" came when Harvey Comics advertised for cartoonists.  A few of Sid's fellow graduates, who had started an art studio of their own, told him about the advertisements.  At Harvey, Couchey's distinctive artwork appeared in the Richie Rich, Little Dot, and Little Lotta titles throughout the 50's and 60's, with reprints that are still appearing today.

[edit] Later career (1983 - present)

     In the spring of 1994, Sid Couchey received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Kansas City Comics Convention.  Also in attendance at the ComiCon were John Byrne, George Perez, and Lee Falk, who bore a strong resemblance to Sid.  Sid and Lee played on this, and dressed alike during the convention for their fans. 
      Couchey has kept busy with local artwork, especially with many cartoons devoted to Champy, the Monster of Lake Champlain.  A second cousin to Scotland's "Nessie", Champy has been sighted for centuries in the Port Henry region of Lake Champlain, even by Samuel de Champlain himself (who described the creature as a 20-foot-long serpent with the head of a horse). 
     In addition to his work with Champy, Sid created the characters of Rascal Raccoon and the Drinking Dog/Cool Cat as part of an alcohol-awareness program for the State of Vermont.  These characters were featured in various posters and animated TV spots to present an anti-alcohol message to children.
     Sid and his wife Ruth still make appearances at film premieres (the Richie Rich movie, for example), in addition to visiting cartoon museums and libraries.  Recently, Sid has completed a series of paintings that echo his professional training--Champy in the Style of the Old Masters, which has been on display in Plattsburgh and at the Ticonderoga Cartoon Museum, both located in New York State.  In this collection, Couchey portrays the famous lake-serpent as he would have been painted by Seurat and Picasso, among others.
    Sid also provided the artwork for Tom Tyler Tales—and Tom Tyler Tales, Too—a comic book dedicated to the memory of Tom Tyler, a B-movie cowboy hero and matinee idol.
    Sid Couchey lives in Essex, New York. with his lovely wife, the former Ruth Horne, and has two children and many grandchildren.

[edit] Legacy

       In 1964, Sid drew The Story of the Champlain Valley to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Plattsburgh, in northern New York State.  It was serialized in Plattburgh's newspaper, the Press-Republican.  Samuel de Champlain, the first European to visit the Champlain Valley, is employed as the narrator of the series; it can be compared to Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe in style and format (if not in scope!).  The series covered over 200 years of history in only a few dozen panels, and was collected in a reprint edition, Our Champlain Story—and is still in print today.
   Cartoonists and comic-book artists love to add in-jokes to their work, and Sid is no exception.   It's worth tracking down the April 1960 (Vol. 1, No. 55) issue of Little Dot, because Sid Couchey appears in a Little Lotta strip entitled "Problem Child", along with his then-fiancée Ruth.  According to his wife, Sid proposed to her with that story.             
   Also, he included local references in dozens of books.  The residents of northern New York State would be surprised to find the names of nearby towns in the pages of a Harvey book.  In one Little Lotta story, Couchey drew a strip around an athletic contest between the towns of Keeseville and Willsboro. Years later, Sid met a basketball coach from Keeseville, who had been wondering "how the heck [our town] ever got in that comic and why they had to lose to Willsboro!"  

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Digital

· *Lambiek.net – Sid Couchey · *[1] · * [2]

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