Movies - Popeye

	Movies - Popeye

Popeye the Sailor is a famous comic strip character, later featured in popular animated cartoons. He was created by Elzie Crisler Segar and first appeared in the King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929. Popeye is an independent sailor with a unique way of speaking, muscular forearms, and an ever-present corncob pipe. His strange, humorous, and often supernatural adventures take him all over the world, and place him in conflict with enemies such as the Sea Hag and King Blozo of Brutopia.

The plot lines in the animated cartoons tended to be simpler. A villain, usually Bluto (later renamed Brutus for a time), makes a move on Popeye's "sweetie", Olive Oyl. The bad guy then clobbers Popeye until Popeye eats spinach, which gives him superhuman strength. (The "spinach factor" is only in the cartoons; in the comic strip, Popeye is just naturally tough.) Spinach farmers in Crystal City, Texas were so grateful for this they erected a statue of Popeye in the town and credited him for saving the then-dying spinach industry.

Although Popeye is short, odd-looking, belligerent, and has only one eye, many consider him a precursor to the superheroes who would eventually come to dominate the world of comic books. Some observers of popular culture point out that the fundamental character of Popeye, paralleling that of another 1930s icon, Superman, is very close to the traditional view of how America sees itself as a nation: possessing uncompromising moral standards and only resorting to force when threatened, or when he "can't stands no more" bad behavior from an antagonist. This theory is directly reinforced in certain cartoons, when Popeye defeats his foe while an American patriotic song such as "The Stars and Stripes Forever" plays on the soundtrack. Popeye also expresses American individualism. "I yam what I yam, and that's all I yam."

Such has been Popeye's cultural impact that the medical profession sometimes refers to the biceps bulge symptomatic of a tendon rupture as the "Popeye muscle" (notice however that Popeye has pronounced brachioradialis muscles of his forearms, rather than biceps).

The comic strip

Popeye first appeared on January 17, 1929 as a minor character in Segar's newspaper cartoon strip Thimble Theatre, which had been running since 1919 with protagonists Olive Oyl, her brother Castor Oyl, and her boyfriend, Ham Gravy. The Popeye character became so popular that he was given a larger role. Olive eventually left Ham Gravy to become Popeye's girlfriend, although she often displayed a fickle attitude towards the sailor. Castor Oyl continued to come up with get-rich-quick schemes, and enlisted Popeye in the misadventures.

In 1933, Popeye received a foundling baby in the mail, whom he adopted and named "Swee'Pea". Other regular characters in the strip were J. Wellington Wimpy, a moocher and hamburger lover who would "gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today"; George W. Geezil, a local cobbler who speaks in a heavily affected accent and habitually attempted to murder or wish death upon Wimpy; Poopdeck Pappy, Popeye's belligerent and woman-hating father; and Eugene the Jeep, a yellow dog from Africa with magical powers.

Segar's strip was quite different from the cartoons that followed. The stories were more complex, with many characters who never appeared in the cartoons (King Blozo for example). Spinach-usage was rare and Bluto made only one appearance. The original newspaper strips were collected and published in multiple volumes by Fantagraphics.

Wimpy's name was later borrowed for the Wimpy restaurant chain, one of the first international fast food restaurants featuring hamburgers, which they call "Wimpy Burgers."

The strip is also responsible for popularising, although not inventing, the word 'goon' (meaning a thug or lackey).

Popeye and other characters from the strip appeared (unauthorized) in many Tijuana Bibles.

Artists after Segar

After Segar's death in 1938, many different artists were hired to draw the strip, the most notable being Bud Sagendorf beginning in 1958. He wrote and drew the daily strip until 1986 and the Sunday strip until his death in 1994. Sagendorf, who had been Segar's assistant, made a definite effort to retain much of the classic style, although his art is instantly discernable. Many obscure characters from the Segar years were maintained, especially O.G.Wotasnozzle and King Blozo. Sagendorf's new characters, such as the Thung, had a very Segar-like quality. What set Sagendorf apart from Segar more than anything else was his sense of pacing. Where plotlines moved very quickly with Segar, it would sometimes take an entire week of Sagendorf's daily strips for the plot to be advanced even a small amount.

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Movies - Popeye

The comic strip

Artists after Segar

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