Upon his discharge, he became a high-school
English teacher for five years (1964–1969) before spending 30 years as a convention manager for the National Council of Teachers of English. 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. Harvey wrote or collected and edited thirteen books on comics and cartooning, including his
Milton Caniff: Conversations (2002) from the University Press of Mississippi, followed by a full biography of Caniff,
Meanwhile... A Biography of Milton Caniff, Creator of Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon (2007) published by Fantagraphics. His most recent book is
Insider Histories of Cartooning: Rediscovering Forgotten Famous Comics and Their Creators (2014) from UPM. A complete list of his books appears at his website. Harvey also interviewed cartoonists for the long-running quarterly magazine
Cartoonist PROfiles, and he contributed a column for a brief time to the ''
Comics Buyer's Guide''. Harvey was a member of the
National Cartoonists Society (NCS) as well as an associate member of the
Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC). He received the following awards: All-Navy Cartoonist, 1960; the AAEC Ink Bottle Award "in recognition of dedicated service to the Association and distinguished efforts to promote the art of editorial cartooning," 2013;
San Diego Comic-Con's
Inkpot Award "for achievement in comic arts," 2018. ==Personal life==