The original Popeye is no paragon of political correctness. Loving a good fight, he socks lots of bad guys and some good ones – even Olive Oyl, his "sweet patootie," once in a while – plus the occasional snake, buzzard, gorilla and "horsh."
And he swears like – well, a sailor, with lots of ***&%^^%#*YA BLARSTED**#^%!!!, etc.
But the non-PC reader will find Popeye's early adventures full of whimsy, clever wordplay, excitement and a kind of merry anarchy. Fantagraphics Books is preserving those adventures in The Complete Popeye, a reprint series that confirms Thimble Theatre, Starring Popeye as a great comic strip and Segar as a genius of the genre.
Two Years of Fun
This second volume covers Popeye's daily doings and Sunday escapades between December 1930 and October 1932. Popeye and company – including Olive and her brother Castor – defeat the "awful outlaw" Glint Gore, end the war between Tonsylvania and King Blozo's Nazilia, and clean up Skullyville – where the bad guys' favorite drinks are formaldehyde, varnish and turpentine.
Popeye Takes Over "Thimble Theatre"
Although Segar drew Thimble Theatre for ten years before introducing Popeye, the one-eyed gob with formidable forearms quickly became its most popular character. And the strip's popularity exploded, with Popeye merchandise selling like cold beer on a hot day, in the midst of the Great Depression. Why?
The First ("Arf, arf!") Superhero
Nearly 40 years ago, the comics historian Bill Blackbeard – whose San Francisco Academy of Comic Art contributed the strips in this volume – suggested an explanation. Blackbeard called Popeye the comics' first superhero, predating Siegel and Shuster's Superman by a decade. And The Complete Popeye confirms Blackbeard's assertion that Popeye, quite simply, cannot be killed.
He is shot roughly twenty times ("Aw, tha's nothin.' I bin shot lots of times. I likes it."), drinks a gallon of poison desert water ("I've drunk worse stuff than this and paid money for it"), survives a lethal drink of wine laced with acid ("I ignores poising!!"), foils a swordsman's attempt to run him through ("Me stumick muskles are so tough they resisks steel"), and is merely knocked unconscious by a cannon shell – to the head.
Strong To The Finish
The original Popeye does indeed eat spinach – usually when his natural super-strength needs a boost, as just before he takes on twenty tough guys ("Spinach is full of vitamin A and tha's what makes hoomans strong an' helty").
"I Got Some Sood Qualikies, Too"And though nobody would call him warm and fuzzy, Segar's Popeye has virtues. He loves kids, for example. When he has money – and hasn't blown it shooting craps – he usually gives it away.
His sense of right and wrong is simple, and absolute. After the bespectacled Yama Skonk – another example of Segar's knack for goofily appropriate names – attempts and (of course) fails to kill Popeye, he tries to keep the vengeful sailor from socking him.
"You can't hit a man who is wearing glasses," Skonk protests.
"A murderer ain't a man!" Popeye replies.
A Fearless "Gen'leman"Though he knocks out Skonk and myriad other "emenies," that's as far as Popeye goes," because "I never kills on account of I yam a gen'leman." He fears "no aminal and no hooman neither," and never worries.
"When an obstickle pops up, I removes it," Popeye tells the perpetual worrywart King Blozo. "Tha's what makes life intrestin.'"
So it's not surprising that this character became an icon during the Depression's worst years.
Keeping The Original AliveSegar was just 43 when he died of leukemia in 1938. Many cartoonists have drawn Popeye since. But Segar's style and whimsy were unique. So a legion of Popeye fans believes, as the cartoonist Mort Walker says in the introduction to this volume, that the "magic was done" after Segar's death.
But thanks to these reprints, we can revel in Popeye's glory days, when Segar's quirky genius was in full flower.
E.C. Segar's Popeye: "Well, Blow Me Down!" Volume 2 of The Complete Popeye, published in 2007 by Fantagraphics Books Inc. ISBN: 978-1-56097-874-9.
