By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
The tough but lovable street cat Heathcliff is back, with a new licensing program marking the popular character’s 50th anniversary.
The TLL Top 20 licensing agency Licensing Haus is taking the helm for the new program, which is coming off of two successful launches from streetwear fashion studios The Hundreds and Sleepy Peach.
But Licensing Haus CEO Maria Alcaide says this is just the beginning of a new era for cartoon cat, which has remained popular throughout the last half-century, but which has not been involved extensively in licensing campaigns in the past.
“Heathcliff is coming up on its 50th anniversary, so this is a really great time to be launching a more widespread licensing program, and it comes at a time when iconic cartoons are back on trend with consumers,” Alcaide says, adding that Heathcliff has the advantage of millions of readers, as well as a core group of ‘Heathcliff fanatics’.
“What I’ve found as I’ve begun work on this project is that at the surface level there are naturally a lot of people who think Heathcliff is an adorable cartoon, but then there’s this very committed subculture of Heathcliff fanatics,” Alcaide explains. “There is this very deep Heathcliff universe, and we’re now finding out just on a pitching level that we’re really attracting those people to the program, and finding that the Heathcliff world is far bigger than you probably realize.”
The Heathcliff cartoon strip was created by comic artist George Gately, who started out in advertising, but whose comic instincts led him to gag humor.
His first big success came with the well-received “Hapless Harry” comic strip. After developing other comic strips including “The Hintleys”, “Hippy” and “Auntie”, Gately created what would become his life’s work in Heathcliff.
But Heathcliff was a big job as Gately had to turn out comic strips every single day, so he partnered with his brother, the successful cartoonist John Gallagher, whose work appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, Sport, Parade, Collier’s and many other magazines.
Becoming an industry giant during the golden age of magazines, from the 1950s to the 1970s, Gallagher won numerous awards including “Best Gag Cartoonist” by the National Cartoonist Society.
The two brothers had a similar sense of humor, and so Gallagher made a natural partner for George Gately with the comic strip Heathcliff, doing much of the writing and shaping the character of the cantankerous kitty.
The idea for the strip was a stray cat who was “born on the wrong side of the tracks in the bad part of town.” When both his parents were locked up by the law, little Heathcliff was left to fend for himself. He grew up quick and he grew up mean, until one day he was rescued by a loving family, the Nutmegs. They welcomed him into their home where he was treated with kindness and love for the first time in his young life. Though Heathcliff loved his new family, he would never lose his street-wise, tough guy beginnings.
The idea of the strip—a tough, conniving but lovable underdog who always managed to come out on top—resonated with millions of Americans, and over the years the strip was featured in hundreds of daily newspapers, more than 50 books, 80 TV shows, and even a feature film.
As time went on, however, the two brothers were approaching retirement age, and Heathcliff might have disappeared forever had it not been for their nephew Peter Gallagher.
Like his uncles, Gallagher was a New Jersey kid, loved art and drawing, and had the same wacky, occasionally surreal sense of humor. He also loved the Heathcliff cartoons, and recalls fondly today how he’d hang around with his uncles, helping with the cartoons even at a very young age.
“I loved to draw I from the time I was a little kid,” Gallagher says. “I would draw every day, it was a thing that I was kind of obsessed with, and one of the things I really loved was to go visit my uncles, who had a drawing studio in the house.
“My dad was their younger brother and he’d scold me a bit sometimes, saying ‘get out of there, that’s where they work’, but I kept sneaking back because I loved seeing all their drawings and stories.”
The experience inspired Gallagher to study art and illustration at college, and that led to his two uncles asking him to help out.
“At first I would just do odd jobs, like organizing the cartoons, but after a while I started giving them ideas, and when they actually approved some of them and used them in the comic strip, it was super exciting, and I was hooked! So, when they were getting older it just kind of naturally happened that I took it over.”
The younger Gallagher officially took over as the lead artist for Heathcliff in 1998, and has kept it going ever since. Despite the decline in newspapers over the decades, the character has remained popular, and along with a side character created in 2022, Jimmy the frog, Heathcliff has retained both broad popularity and a large cult following.
In fact, a quick scan of sites like eBay will show a huge number of sellers who are marketing Heathcliff goods, although notably, without any licensing agreement!
That, says Alcaide, is going to change.
“If you go on eBay, Amazon or (the customized gift site) Zazzle, you’ll see so many Heathcliff products that it’s kind of shocking,” Alcaide says. “Obviously there’s a lot of infringement that we’re going to get cleaned up, but it also goes to show that there’s already this bubbling appetite out there for Heathcliff, allowing us to replace these unauthorized goods with new, fresh licensed products.
“It’s also a message to potential licensors, because if people are going to go out of their way to put items up there, they only do that because they know it’s going to sell, so there is already this collective understanding out there in the marketplace that the Heathcliff brand has buying power.”
In fact, the two new collaborations Heathcliff has been involved with in 2023 did well, with the new Heathcliff cardigan on the Sleepy Peach site sold out and available only on a wait list. The co-founder of Sleepy Peach, who goes only by the name Eric, definitely falls into the Heathcliff fanatic territory, as he announced the licensing deal by saying, “My dream collaboration is finally happening! Brands have reached out to me for collaborations before, but this was the first (and only) collaboration I’ve been actively pursuing for years. I finally got approval from the creator himself to create official Heathcliff streetwear.”
Gallagher now says he had been careful not to just jump into licensing, out of concern his lack of experience could lead to the brand being tarnished.
That only changed when Gallagher was introduced to Licensing Haus by a friend whom he knew and trusted to give him good advice.
“I want to be careful going into a new type of business for me,” Gallagher says. “It’s really important to me that if we’re going to do some sort of collaboration that the products coming out of it are going to be really cool, and that they’re going to enhance the character and the brand, right?
“Fortunately my friends introduced me to Maria, and we’ve been working together for a few months now, and it’s been terrific. One thing I’ve learned is that Maria really knows this business, and knows everybody in it.”
Alcaide says the plan is to focus on the fashion and lifestyle categories initially, looking for a “head to toe approach with items that people have a lot of fun with, like headwear, socks, slippers, slides, shoes, and apparel.
“But then we also want to go for some really unique areas that are specific to the Heathcliff property like pet products. Given his character, cat treats are something that would really jive with Heathcliff,” she adds. “As well, there’s so many exciting ways to incorporate this property into food and beverage products, so I think there will be a lot of cool stuff we can tease out of this brand.”
As well, Gallagher and Alcaide are eager to work with the new character in the Heathcliff comics, Jimmy the frog. Ironically, the idea behind the character is that Heathcliff is convinced he can turn Jimmy into the ‘next big thing’, but nobody really gets it.
“He came out this past year, and the idea is that there’s this tiny little frog that Heathcliff is trying to promote as the next big thing, but nobody’s buying it; nobody likes Jimmy at all,” Gallagher explains. “But the weird thing is that on social media people love Jimmy; they’re going crazy for him, and Jimmy merch is selling like crazy.
“For whatever reason, people like Jimmy a lot. He’s been this wildly successful side character.’
That’s another character Licensing Haus will be working with on licensing deals, and in fact, some are already well on the way.
“We have a couple deals that are already going, and you know, we were talking to them about Jimmy and showed them the strips, and as soon as they saw it, it was like the visual spoke for itself,” Alcaide recalls. “They read the cartoon and they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we get it.’ So Jimmy is definitely going to be a major part of the licensing program, for sure.”
It also doesn’t hurt that Alcaide and many of her team happen to be Heathcliff fans themselves, making them even more excited about putting together new and innovative collaborations.
“We are obsessed with Heathcliff,” Alcaide says. “We think it’s just such a brilliant cartoon that seems simple, but has these really clever, sometimes surreal humorous bits.
“So we’re already immersed in that world, and now everybody on my team here want to really thoughtfully build a very strong licensing program, making sure we’re tapping all the areas that have been proven successful with consumers.
“We don’t want to just sell product, either; we really want to view very single product as a portal into the Heathcliff fandom,” she adds. “These collaborations may be some people’s first touch points into the world of Heathcliff, and we take that very seriously to create an overall, net positive benefit of this brand.”
The Heathcliff brand licensing program is currently in the early stages with more announcements coming soon from Licensing Haus. Anyone interested in licensing collaborations can reach the team by email via maria@licensinghaus.com
Read More About Licensing Haus in the January 2024 Edition of the TLL Guide to Licensing Agencies
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