On a gray November afternoon back in 2010, Ruth and Sid Couchey rang my doorbell to present this playful rendering of Rosslyn boathouse. We sat in the living room and talked and laughed until the dreary afternoon yielded to technicolor levity.

For all who had the good fortune of knowing long time Essex resident Sid Couchey, his sense of humor and generosity of spirit rivaled his fame as the illustrator behind Harvey Comics characters Richie Rich, Little Lotta and Little Dot.

“He was always willing to pull your leg,” said Bruce Klink of Willsboro. (Press-Republican)

With a perennial twinkle in his eye and a clever image or anecdote at the ready, Couchey’s presence was perennially and enthusiastically welcome in Essex. Though he passed away on Sunday, March 11, 2012 his legacy will endure in our small town on Lake Champlain where he chose to spend most of his adult life. [Continue reading…]

More Sid Couchey Memories

Essex cartoonist, artist Sid Couchey dies “Sid was a true original. The much loved Essex man was a cartoonist who drew such characters as Richie Rich, Little Dot and Little Lotta for Harvey Comics for many years… He also painted “Champy by the Masters,” a series of images of the Lake Champlain monster in the styles of such artists as Picasso and Monet… Sid created a mascot for the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.” (Press-Republican)

Remembering North Country artist, illustrator Sid Couchey “One of the North Country’s most influential and beloved artists passed away last month. Sid Couchey was a cartoonist and illustrator who lived in Essex in the Champlain Valley. He drew for decades for Harvey Comics, helping to bring life to iconic characters like Richie Rich and Little Lotta. Couchey, who was 92 years old, also popularized characters like “Champy,” the friendly sea monster that supposedly haunts Lake Champlain. Brian Mann has this remembrance.” (NCPR News)

Little Lotta artist Sid Couchey passes away “Artist Sid Couchey, an illustrator who brought many a Little Lotta story to life during the halcyon days of Harvey Comics, passed away March 111. He was 92. Couchey’s long career stretched from serving as an assistant to Superman co-creator Joe Shuster to steady if uncredited work in a number of comics during the 1950s, Harvey in the 1960s and 1970s, and a whole second career as a local-interest cartoonist, drawing comics about Champy, Lake Champlain’s answer to the Loch Ness Monster. He also may have been the first artist to embed a real-life marriage proposal in a comic.” (Comic Book Resources)

Honoring Essex Cartoonist, Sid Couchey “Champy, the Lake Champlain monster, is one of many details of his own personal life that Couchey wove into his comics. Images of the Essex ferry are also common, and in 1959 or 1960 he even proposed to Ruth in a Little Lotta comic! Once his days with Harvey Comics came to an end, he “enjoyed a long second career as a local and regional cartoonist” chronicling the lighthearted sides of life in Essex and the Adirondacks. Many of the brochures, pamphlets and books about Essex and the Champlain Valley… are illustrated by him. It would seem that we’re overdue in anointing Sid Couchey the Cartoonist Laureate of Essex…” (Rosslyn Redux)