Customer Reviews

Popeye: The Great Comic Book Tales of Bud Sagendorf

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As expected, another great book from Craig Yoe & Company.

It's nice to see Bud Sagendorf finally get his due. As a kid, I began reading the Popeye comic books because of my love for the Fleischer cartoons. While I found Sagendorf's Popeye to be a somewhat different character than the animated version, I remember finding these stories to be very funny and very satisfying.

Time has not dimmed their power.

Okay, as to contents - you get...

* A very nice, short 1-page introduction by animation historian and fellow comic book fan Jerry Beck.

* 16 pages of introductory material including a brief essay by Craig and a smattering of previously little seen artwork by Sagendorf including a Popeye booklet prepared by Sagendorf for the Red Cross in 1946 and two pages Sagendorf contributed to the Famous Cartoonist Course in 1956.

* "Shame on You" from Popeye # 1 (1948)

* "Misermites" from Popeye # 9 (1949)

* "Witch Whistle" from Popeye # 12 (1950)

* "Interplanetary Battle" from Popeye # 21 (1952)

* "Shrink Weed" from Popeye # 25 (1953)

* "The Happy Little Island" from Popeye # 27 (1954)

* "Alone" from Popeye # 32 (1955)

* "Nothing" from Popeye # 34 (1955)

* "Spinach Soap" from Popeye # 41 (1957)

Most of Popeye's amazing supporting cast is here: Olive, Wimpy, Swee'pea, King Blozo, and the Sea Hag. (Despite what the "Editorial Review" says, there is NO Bluto - who as we know, was mainly a bad guy in the cartoons.)

The reproduction is excellent. The pages are slightly larger than the original comic book size and the coloring is a dead ringer for the way these old Dell Comics actually looked!

These really are some of the very best of Sagendorf's long, long career drawing the one-eyed sailor ("Misermites" is a personal favorite).

Highly recommended!

It's a wonderful time to be a Popeye fan!

Fantagraphics has released its fifth volume of the original Popeye comic strips. The third boxed set of Popeye animated cartoons is out on DVD. And now we have the best of the Popeye comic books by Bud Sagendorf to complete the picture. All are a little different and each is great in its own way.

Of these three incarnations of the famous sailor man, the comic book version has been the easiest to overlook. As far as I know, these stories haven't been printed in color like this since the original Dell comics in the 1950s. Unless you're willing to pay collector's prices for the vintage comic books, this is the only way to enjoy this material.

The stories are delightful, funny, charming, weird, and action-packed. Although the comic books were written for kids, like the Little Lulu or Uncle Scrooge comics of this period, they can be enjoyed by adults as well.

The most interesting thing to me is how Sagendorf structured his comic book stories, as if they were individual Sunday pages. Each builds to a climax that makes you want to turn the page and see what happens next.

As usual, Yoe Books has put together a terrific package with fact-filled introductory material, authentic reproduction, and a sturdy binding. A real first-class job of book-making.

With all due respect to the nice folks at Amazon, it is not Kindle-friendly. The book is a thing of beauty to have and hold, a work of art unto itself. Reading these comics off an electronic screen is not the same experience as holding an honest-to-goodness book in your hands and enjoying it.

I overheard a man talking to the clerk at my local comics store. They had a long conversation about Popeye and the clerk highly recommended this book. Being a Popeye fan myself I ran and checked it out. I'm so glad I found this book. The comics have a great classic feel to them with beautiful full color inside.

This book is clever right down to the back cover. The information on the back is made up to look like ingredients on a spinach can and the inside of the covers looks like the inside of the can! Fun fun fun all the way! I would highly recommend this book to any comic fan.

As a huge fan of the brilliant work of Bud Sagendorf, this is the book I have been waiting for. I have always preferred the work of Sagendorf to that of Popeye's legendary creator, E. C. Segar. Sagendorf's cartooning style is far more relaxed and accomplished than was Segar's. His scenes of action, wherein Popeye dispatches foes like the mammoth Kid Kabbage or the horrific vultures of the Sea Hag; are some of the finest ever seen in kids' comics. Sagendorf's work is pure big-foot cartooning done by a great master, ranking alongside the work of my other favorites, Jack Bradbury, Howie Post, Jim Tyer, and Carl Barks.

The stories that appear in this collection come from Sagendorf's comic book work, which was the perfect medium for the artist; allowing him to stretch out in long, imaginative stories geared for children (remember when comics were actually written with children in mind? Today, the target audience seems to be sad, frustrated, middle-aged men).

To read these stories is to feel your spirit lightened. The artwork is really beautiful eye candy, and each page is pure comic book heaven. Craig Yoe, editor of this collection, has given us a beautifully bound, gorgeously reproduced collection of one of the truly underappreciated geniuses of comic book art. As Yoe says in his introduction, Sagendorf belongs in the top ranks of Dell Comics' glorious history of great artists - equal in storytelling and cartooning to Carl Barks or John Stanley. You will not be disappointed in this collection. Sagendorf had the rare gift for creating stories that were "child-like" instead of "childish" which, oddly, always feel more mature and wise than the flounderings found in today's comics, which try way too hard to be taken seriously. It is a true shame that, for many, Sagendorf stands in the overbearing shadow of Segar. He more than deserves to be seen for the great strengths of his own work (and here he is!).

If you are an adult that appreciates historic cartooning and great art, buy it for yourself. If you have a child in the house, however, you may find yourself putting your son or daughter in your lap and reading them together.

Sagendorf's Popeye is my favorite of the character's incarnations, and this collection is a fine sampling of what makes this iteration so enjoyable. The wild ideas...the bold, clean linework...the broad humor...Sagendorf brought a unique creative energy to Popeye that readers of all ages can respond to and appreciate. I applaud IDW for releasing this book, and hope there will be more to follow!

I've been a lifelong fan of Popeye but only a recent convert to the comic version. This beautiful hardcover collects 10 stories by Bud Sagendorf, the former assistant to Popeye creator E.C. Segar who wrote and drew Popeye comics for over five decades after Segar's untimely death. His Popeye is very much in the vein of Segar's original, but he brings a kind of sunny excitement that makes it his own (and maybe a bit more digestible to fans of the animated Popeye).

I hope they decide to put out more Sagendorf Popeye material in the future.

What a great collection of Popeye comics! It includes some really fantastic stories including my personal favorite, the Sea Hag! Sagendorf's artwork is so fun and I'm glad to see it preserved in this beautiful book!

The book quality is lovely and the color is very accurate to what the original comic would look like. It has this nostalgic feel to it. I could stare at these pages all day! The colors are just so vibrant! I also really love the spinach can design on the inside of the book. It's like an abstract work of art! The book as a whole is fantastic and I would highly recommend it!

Not every story in this volume deserves the classification "greatest". Love to see the Sea Hag represented, but where is the classic GOON ISLAND with it's "Cast of Thousands"? Like most of Craig Yoe's collections, this is nice, but leaves one wanting more. Still, it's great to see Sagendorf collected at all.

"I Yam What I Yam". When I was growing up this seemed like a meaningless tautological statement, after all aren't we all what we are? It wasn't until I read the fabulous works of Popeye creator Elzie Segar that Popeye's catch phrase finally resonated. Segar's Popeye was an unattractive, poorly educated, ruffian with bad grammar who swore and gambled and of course punched people on a biblical scale with oversized fists. His legendary self proclamation generally followed a socially unacceptable act as if to unapologetically acknowledge that he'd done wrong but justify it by stating that his actions are engrained in his nature. In one of Segar's strips Popeye violently slaps down Olive Oyl and "I Yam What I Yam" could have easily been interpreted as "I Can't Help Who I Am". Bud Sagendorf's interpretation of Popeye is a VASTLY watered down domesticated version of Segar's multidimensional Popeye. His true blue cardboard Popeye essentially strips "I Yam What I Yam" of any real meaning.

The fact is Craig Yoe's collection of Bud Sagendorf's comics is the ugly step sister to Fantagraphics exhaustive collection of the works of Elzie Segar and the Amazon sales is reflective of this. Segar was a superior artist, a far better storyteller and created a character that was so unique that even today he feels edgy. Unfortunately Segar died at the young age of 43 having less than a decade to craft the world of Popeye. Bud Sagendorf, by contrast, had over four decades working on Popeye and his is the most recognizable incarnation. Fantagraphics just released volume 5 and I can't help but compare the two with Sagendorf coming out a vanishingly distant second. If Popeye is watered down Wimpy is absolutely bled dry. The humor of Wimpy was the way he was a lying, shameless mooch so self absorbed that it reached the point of mental illness. Sagendorf `s Wimpy, by contrast, is a rather inconsequential pal of Popeye little more relevant than a piece of furniture. The strangest change, however, is Swee'Pea who for whatever reason speaks like an adult. Having such bland characters robs Popeye of any of the humor that Segar was famous for.

As a huge Popeye fan I can't tell you how disappointing this collection is. The stories aren't just written FOR children they feel like they were written BY a child. Imagine asking a youngster to come up with a Popeye story and the child might say, "So Popeye and Swee'pea sail to the Happy L'il Island where everyone is happy but now no one is happy because every time they're happy a little man with a hammer comes out of the ground and smashes their feet making them sad". This is seriously the plot of one of the stories. In another story Popeye and Swee'pea are miniaturized because they accidentally ate `Shrink Weed' that resembles spinach. No explanation is given for the existence of this amazing plant. In yet another Wimpy broadcasts a challenge to anyone in the universe who would like to face Popeye in the ring and a goofy looking Martian shows up to do battle. The stories are so lacking in depth that I curse Leukemia for taking Segar far too soon.

Let me finish by saying that Sagendorf's skills as a cartoonist are quite good and a decent replacement for Segar but the colors in this collection are horrible. Craig Yoe presented a page of Sagendorf's art with only inking and it looked very nice but when the colors are added they kill the presentation. These are unlikely to be Yoe's fault but one thing I question is Yoe's use of such heavy stock paper. The book is pretty thick for just 176 pages but it's due to the thickness of the paper. The comics here really don't merit such fine treatment and Yoe could have included a lot more stories with a thinner stock of paper. On the other hand the volume of material here was more than enough of a sample of Sagendorf for my needs. In 1979 Bud Sagendorf published an awesome book titled `Popeye: The First Fifty Years' (now over 80 years). I loved that book and was looking forward to seeing the comics of Sagendorf but this is not at all what I was hoping for. If you're a fan of Popeye I suggest reading all the stories by Segar and if you're burning for more get the Fleischer Cartoons and if you just can't live without more Popeye pick up this book. Just be prepared for a dramatic drop in quality unless you're nine years old in which case the Happy Li'l Island may seem perfectly reasonable.