Popeye

---

Popeye, America's most famous sailor man, made his first appearance as an incidental character in the January 17, 1929, installment of the Thimble Theatre comic strip. Created by cartoonist Elzie Crisler Segar (1894–1938), the one-eyed, craggy-faced sailor with bulging forearms and ever-present corncob pipe was an unlikely heroic figure. He was uneducated, uncouth, and spoke in a unique dialect peppered with curses and malapropisms (the use of words that sound similar to the intended words but ridiculously wrong). Despite these flaws, Popeye quickly emerged as one of the nation's favorite characters.

Segar created Thimble Theatre in 1919 at the urging of publisher William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951), who was looking for a new strip to feature in his many newspapers. The original premise of the strip involved the spoofing of current movies. Segar soon transformed the strip from a gag-a-day feature to an adventure series. His original cast consisted of the slightly seedy Oyl family. Cole and Nana Oyl were the bumbling parents of Castor Oyl, a conniving blowhard, and Olive Oyl, their painfully thin and ungracious daughter. Many of the strip's earliest adventures revolved around the escapades of Castor and Ham Gravy, Olive's first boyfriend. In 1929, Castor and Hamacquired a magical bird known as Bernice the Whiffle Hen. They planned to take the hen to a gambling casino on Dice Island and use the bird's mystical powers to win a fortune. However, neither knew how to operate a boat. They searched the waterfront for someone to sail them to Dice Island and soon encountered Popeye.

Popeye was not designed as a recurring character, but Segar enjoyed him and extended his stay until, eventually, Popeye held the center stage of Thimble Theatre. In Comics Between the Panels, Segar's attitude toward the sailor is revealed: "Popeye is much more than a goofy comic character to me. He represents all my emotions, and he is an outlet for them. I'd like to cut loose and knock the heck out of a lot of people, but my good judgment and size hold me back." Much of Popeye's popularity resulted from his seeming indestructibility. The original source of Popeye's superhuman strength was said to have been from rubbing the head of the Whiffle Hen. Later, spinach was claimed as the source of Popeye's great fighting prowess. In the 1930s, Popeye was so popular that the spinach industry credited Segar with increasing spinach consumption by 33 percent.

Popeye's adventures combined elements of farce (ridiculous situations meant to make people laugh), surrealism (dreamlike representations of the subconscious mind), pathos (situations making the viewer feel pity or compassion), and melodrama (emotional story lines that emphasize the action rather than the characters). The strip also boasted one of the greatest casts in comics. Among those who joined Popeye on his voyages were Poopdeck Pappy, Wimpy, Eugene the Jeep, Swee'Pea, and Alice the Goon. Popeye's most persistent adversaries were the evil Sea Hag, Bluto, and Brutus, his rivals for Olive's affections.

Popeye was a merchandising success and appeared in numerous cartoon shorts. In 1980, Robin Williams (1952–) starred as the sailor in the film musical Popeye by Robert Altman (1925–). The strip continued for decades after Segar's death, but lacked its creator's unique vision.

—Charles Coletta

For More Information

Anobile, Richard. Popeye: The Movie Novel. New York: Avon, 1980.

Blackbeard, Bill, and Martin Williams. The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1977.

Duin, Steve, and Mike Richardson. Comics Between the Panels. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Comics, 1998.

Marschall, Richard. America's Great Comic-Strip Artists. New York: Abbeville Press, 1989.

Sagendorf, Bud. Popeye: The First Fifty Years. New York: Workman Publishing, 1979.