Jeffrey Montgomery: Raising Casper The Ghost From The Dead

Every year, as his family made its annual camper trip up the Pacific Coast, Jeffrey A. Montgomery would bury his face in comic books. "What else was a kid going to do on a ride from Los Angeles to Oregon?" he asks. Now 27, he's still into comics, as chairman of Harvey Comics Entertainment. But this isn't child's play. "I look at myself as a character manager," he explains.

Montgomery is hustling to resurrect a galaxy of characters including Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich, and Baby Huey. When he bought Harvey for $8 million in 1989, it was producing only two comics a month, and its characters hadn't been on TV in years. He dug into the archives for old comic books to rerelease, first sprucing them up with modern language and fresh color. He now has 15 monthly titles, including the newly acquired New Kids on the Block.