Customer Reviews

Popeye, Vol. 2: Well Blow Me Down!

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Do yourself a big favor right off the bat: skip Donald Phelps' jargon-choked, muddy mess of a preamble and dive right into the strips themselves. If you read Volume 1, you pretty much know the drill anyway. In these daily and Sunday strips from 1931-32, Segar is still burnishing the character of Popeye while slowly starting to develop the sailor man's stable of supporting players. Wimpy makes his first appearance as a referee in a Sunday sequence featuring "sprize fighter" Popeye's bout with the man-mountain Tinearo, then gradually infiltrates the ranks of regular patrons at Rough House's Café (which also debuts here, along with its hirsute, gruff, opinionated manager) and wastes little time in firmly establishing his murmuring, hamburger-mooching persona. There are big doings "below the fold" as well, in the supplementary Sunday strip "Sappo"; after a long spell as a backyard inventor, John Sappo welcomes Prof. O.G. Wottasnozzle into his home, and wild flights of fancy are not long in arriving. (Reflecting Segar's love of outdoor sports, a number of these early gadgets and gizmos relate to making hunting and fishing easier... which, of course, they don't.) The highlight of the daily "Thimble Theatre" strip during this period is "The Great Rough-House War" (no, it has nothing to do with bad food) between worrywart King Blozo's Nazilia and "cowardly" Tonsylvania. This may be regarded as a sort of warm-up act for Segar's most ambitious and fondly remembered political parody, the "Dictator of Spinachovia" story of the mid-30s, but it holds up very well on its own. The silly struggle packages a strong pacifist message, no surprise given the tenor of the times. Before the war story, Popeye (with a surprisingly large amount of help from a pistol-packin' Olive Oyl) polishes off Western outlaw Glint Gore and his gang, then uses the reward money to open a "one-way bank" that offers free funds to the disbelieving, Depression-straitened citizenry. The latter story stings a little bit too much to be a real laugh-riot today, but those who contend that Popeye's world is completely oblivious of our own will have to contend with a strong counter-argument here. After boosting Blozo, Popeye then saves Olive from Bluto... sorry, force of habit... from the fate of a worked-to-death barroom dancer in "Skullyville, the Toughest Town in the World," another Western setting. Was Segar working out a personal fetish for sagebrush opi in doing the Skullyville story so soon after the Glint Gore epic?

With the debuts of Swee'Pea and (fatefully) Bluto to come in Volume 3, the spinach-powered momentum of Segar's wonderful strip is just beginning to kick in. Too bad that we'll have to wait a full year to enjoy the next batch.

Volume one featured the world's first introduction to Popeye. In this volume the character of Popeye continues to take shape. As the book progresses Castor Oyl slowly fades from the scene until Popeye and Olive are left standing as the undisputed centerpieces of Elzie Segar's Thimble Theater. Popeye's physical appearance improves significantly bringing him much closer to his traditional look particularly in his chin which looked kind of droopy in the first volume.

You can sense a bit of a moral dilemma on the part of Segar. On the one hand the humor of Popeye revolves around his violent nature and inhuman ability to take and deliver punishment. On the other hand Segar clearly wants to make Popeye a likable even admirable character. His solution seemed to be to always add at least a hint of obnoxiousness to everyone he punches so that one can make an argument that the recipient of Popeye's punishment had it coming to them. Although this means that Popeye's neighborhood (never referred to as Sweethaven as far as I've seen) is packed with men itching for a fight. Every once in awhile Popeye socks someone for no good reason like an American Indian who Popeye assumes might try and scalp him. In this case Olive Oyl acts as the voice of reason telling Popeye it's wrong to abuse American Indians. This also seems to be a way for Segar to let people know that he is aware that some of Popeye's actions are morally dubious. In this volume Popeye becomes an almost Mother Theresa type humanitarian, opening up a one-way bank using a $25,000 the reward he received. He ends up giving out money to the poor until he's left with nothing for himself. This seems to be a continuing theme with him repeatedly using money he earns to help out the poor. Popeye has also become a hero and protector of children and in one comic Popeye tries to help a small boy learn to fight. He does this by punching out random men walking down the street.

Volume 2 features some famous firsts. The first appearances of Wimpy and Roughhouse and the first time Popeye is shown powering up with spinach. It's difficult for me to express how much I loved these comics. Elzie Segar's Popeye is a surprisingly multidimensional character compared to his later incarnations. At one point, after a particularly harsh verbal barrage from Olive, Popeye slaps her to the ground. It's a shocking moment even more so because earlier in the book Popeye had financially assisted a woman who had been battered by her husband. When Olive scolds him for the slap Popeye replies, `I yam what I yam' but in that instant with his head held low he might as well have said, `I can't help what I yam'. Quite a difference from the cardboard hero he became as the years went by. Where else would you find a cartoon character wrestle with his own penchant for violence or later express such honest and heartfelt love for a girl?

Volume one was five star material but volume two is even better. I never would have expected a comic over seventy five years old to be this edgy and legitimately funny. It's also amazing how much Elzie Segar's drawings improve over a very short period of time. There is one strip in particular that had me laughing hard. Popeye has gotten himself involved in a war and, in one of his last appearances; Castor Oyl tells Popeye that King Blozo wants to see him immediately. Suddenly a cannonball flies up and smacks Popeye in the rear sending him sailing like a rag doll through the air, through a pole, through the castle wall landing him at the king's feet. Castor says something like, "It wasn't THAT urgent". The visual of Popeye sailing through the air is absolutely hilarious and the punch line was perfect

If you're reading this review you're likely debating whether you should get this book and if you're debating let me assure you, you should. The only downside is we have to wait until fall 2008 to get the next volume.

Popeye the Sailor, a mainstay of modern popular mythology, blasticates his way through another delectable volume. Morality doesn't know what hit it. The one-eyed squawking proto-Superman plot device who appeared in 1929 continues to bully his way to justice with dirigible forearms and pile driver fists. So much so that, sometime in 1931 the previous alpha male, Castor Oyl, unceremoniously vanishes. Sadly, many may not notice his absence. By the Skullyville adventure, about 70 pages in, Popeye has fully usurped the strip. Duo becomes solo. Olive Oyl, Castor's sister, fills the void and brings the strip to fruition. Her battles with Popeye's personality and Popeye's battles with himself give the strip a sniper focus and a razor edge. Popeye emerges as one of the most complicated characters to ever darken newsprint. He has a heart of gold. Most of the time. The rest of the time his convoluted ideas of justice result in much pummeling of innocents. On the first page, in a very un-PC strip, he wallops an Indian because "I read all about you swabs in story books and ya ain't goner scalop me - savvy?" Later, when he whacks another one Olive reprimands him. His only excuse: "I yam what I yam." He hits cows, again to Olive's chagrin. He accidentally mauls a stranger, apologizing afterwards that "I thought ya was somebody else." He promises repeatedly to Olive he'll give up fighting, only to use the situation to his advantage. Olive proudly kisses him, not seeing the well hidden and thoroughly trodden victims. He also spurns Olive's cooking to her abysmal heartbreak. To complicate things, Popeye gives $500,000 to a random poor child, rescues an orphan from abusive and refuses reward money, and befriends all the neighborhood children. A heartwarming contrast to the pulverizing vigilante. But the hardest, most unforgivable, strip to stomach occurs on April 14, 1932. Here he actually smacks Olive across the face.She later proves her fortitude by saving him from vultures. She only plays the helpless woman. She's anything but (as the 13 outlaws she shoots in the shoulder and throws in the cellar can attest to). This strip has depth.

And other surprises await: this volume finally eradicates the total vacuous absence of spinach from Volume One. Though Popeye already possesses Herculaen strength, spinach enables him to take on twenty men, which happens in the July 3rd, 1932 Sunday panel. Here spinach culminates as a Vitamin A coup d'état. The twenty fall like toothpicks in a typhoon of fists. Earlier that year, a heaping pile of spinach gives Popeye the boost he needs to flatten an unflattenable roughneck. After he plummets, people rush to Roughhouse's counter demanding a helping. In the final panel, Popeye tells mothers to "tell yer youngstirs I said they should eat spinach and vegetables on account of I wants 'em to be strong an' helthy - I will be a persnal fren of all chil'ren who eats what their maw says to eat." Popeye's sensitive side once again percolates. And, best of all, Mr. Wimpy appears in full splendor as the embodiment of pathetic manipulation and gluttony. Though the depression and hunger earn him some sympathy. It works on Popeye... sometimes. Wimpy also referees all Popeye's fights (which begs the question as to why he's so poor, but there you have it). His mantra "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today!" resonates through the Sunday strips (he doesn't appear in this volume's dailies). The appearances of spinach and Wimpy makes this an unforgettable read. Try not to keep turning the beach blanket sized pages.

Fans of volume one will find much to succor in this volume. E.C. Segar's brilliant amalgam of adventure, comedy, bizarre romance, melodrama, violence, and head scratching morality inexorably carries on. The tension rises, the strip focuses, and the sailor reigns undeterred (even against gorillas and robots). To claim this strip inspires philosophical reflection is no exagerration. It's no wonder Castor Oyl quietly stepped aside and let the steamroller sailor take the wheel. Not that he could have stopped him if he tried. Like unflinching Sisyphus, nothing stops Popeye. But Bluto will appear in volume three... I guess we'll see.

This is the second volume of Fantagraphics Books series that plans to reprint the complete run of E.C. Segar's Popeye comic strip. This volume reprints the daily strips from December 22, 1930 to June 8, 1932 and the color Sunday strips from March 1, 1931 to October 2, 1932. They are printed in a nice big size that makes them easy to read. The daily strips and the Sunday strips do not follow the same storyline. The dailies have longer storylines, such as when Popeye helps a tiny European country win a war. The Sundays have shorter storylines, often involving Popeye in boxing matches. Olive Oyl's brother, Castor Oyl, quietly disappears from the strip during this time period (he was once the lead character in the strip). Notable characters introduced during this period are Rough House (the chef) and Wimpy (originally introduced as the referee of Popeye's boxing matches). These are great comic strips which are well reproduced. The only bad thing about the book is the introduction by Donald Phelps. It's an incomprehensible bore and it's only Part One!

E. C. Segar was a comic genius, but just how great a genius becomes clear as you read his Popeye stories in this beautifully reproduced new series from Fantagraphics. Popeye himself is one of the most fascinating and complex characters in American fiction, a tender-hearted ruffian who clobbers not just big thugs but also puny bystanders, and yet somehow never seems the least bit like a bully. Popeye was still taking shape in Popeye Vol. 1: "I Yam What I Yam" (Popeye), but he's completely present in the new book, and now it's the turn of supporting characters like Roughhouse and Wimpy--Segar's second-greatest comic creation--to emerge before our eyes. I hope these wonderful books are getting the support they deserve. Their only drawback is that it's a year between volumes.

The first volume in Fantagraphics' reprint of all of E.C. Segar's Popeye comic strips was a transitional period. Seagar, who was in his mid-30s at the time, had been doing his Thimble Theatre comic strip for a decade at the point when the one-off peripheral character Popeye (the sailor) was introduced. It's well known that Popeye was intended to simply stay around for one storyline only to return due to the tremendous feedback from fans, but even in that one storyline we see Segar becoming infatuated with the character of Popeye, pushing all the regulars to the sideline to give the sailor man a chance to shine. The rest of that volume is a bit of a cocooned caterpillar, as the strip original focused on the Oyl family metamorphoses into a starring vehicle for Popeye.

Volume 2 is where things really get good.

In this book Popeye is finally firmly established as the star of the comic, and he's settled into the familiar personality and character design that we all love. Not only did Segar create a truly unique hero in Popeye, but the addition of such a great character was just the shot in the arm that the man needed because once Popeye came in the picture Segar's game was raised exponentially! The stories and images he concocts in this second volume blow away everything we saw in the first. The thrills come faster and the laughs come harder as Popeye romances Olive Oyl, battles badmen in the wild west, travels abroad to fight in a (broadly satirical) war, and steps into the ring for more slapstick-infused prize fights (the first of which were the undoubted highlights of the first volume. Why didn't the cartoons do more Popeye as a boxer shorts?). Popeye rapidly accumulates some seller supporting cast members in this volume, including King Blozo, Rough House the chef, and that miscreant Wimpy!

I will repeat what I said in my review of the first book in this series: I love the format, congratulations to Fantagraphics on their creative design. Why not print in the US, though? The book feels great in the hand and the layout of six dailies to a page speed the reading up for me. I might suggest however that weaker eyes may have trouble with the text size.

Popeye is really developing as a character in this volume. I have the first five volumes, but am rationing the reading of them to savour the enjoyment.

Other reviewers have described the nuts and bolts, I wanted to focus on aesthetic appeal.

This is the golden age for all kinds of comics reprints -- from comic books to single-panels, but especially the great newspaper strips of the 20th century. Fantagraphics and IDW seem to be trying to out-do each other with each new project, and other houses like Drawn & Quarterly and NBM are scarcely a step behind. Nearly every major strip is either in process or has been announced -- from Gasoline Alley to Mickey Mouse, from Mutt and Jeff to Dick Tracy, from Peanuts to Bloom County -- and the only problems for collectors is finding the money and shelf space to accommodate the flood of books. (And maybe the time to read them.)

One of most-forgotten of those great strips is Elzie Crisler Segar's Thimble Theatre: usually called by the name of its most famous character, Popeye, and overshadowed by his later exploits in bigger media (the Fleischer cartoons of the '30s, the many TV cartoons since then, the odd Altman live-action movie from 1980), Segar's original is a full-bodied funny adventure strip, with long, intricate continuities and a large cast of quirky characters. (Though Popeye was clearly the central character from soon after his introduction.) Fantagraphics has been reprinting the Segar Thimble Theatre strips, from Popeye's introduction in 1929 (ten years into Thimble Theatre's run, actually) through Segar's death in 1938, with five volumes out so far and a concluding sixth due to be published late in 2011. (I saw the first book back in 2008, and was very impressed -- impressed enough to get volumes 2-4, actually, though it's taken a while to work out a time and place to actually read these impressively large slabs of comics.)

The second book is "Well, Blow Me Down!" -- the actual volume number is buried in the copyright information on the title page [1]; each book does stand alone, though, since each reprints whole continuities -- which was published in 2007 and reprints daily strips from December, 1930 through June 1932 and Sunday strips (which had a separate continuity) from '31 through October of '32. It also has a very short foreword by Mort Walker and the first half of a only mildly tedious academic-style article by Donald Phelps. [2]

Those who are used to only the post-Fleischer Popeye plots -- a large beefy type named either Bluto or Brutus kidnaps Olive; Popeye's strength is insufficient until he gags down a can-load of spinach; Popeye clobbers the man named B and embraces Olive -- will be surprised to see how expansive and inventive are the stories here. The dailies, with a broader canvas and longer continuities, first send Popeye and Olive's brother Castor out west to capture the notorious outlaw Glint Gore, then back for Popeye to spend his reward money setting up a "one-way bank," and then off to the South Seas for a long string of stories about the war between the nations of Nazilia and Tonsylvania, before ending up with another western story, with Popeye trying to clean up Skullyville, "the toughest town in the world." And those daily strips are a generous six panels long, giving Segar lots of space for wordplay, fighting, and various shenanigans.

The Sundays are somewhat more domestic, sticking closer to home, mostly with stories about Popeye's boxing career (taking on a series of bruisers set up by Mr. Kilph, who hates Popeye for reasons explained in the first volume), and many, many cartoons about Popeye calling on Olive or hanging out at restaurant run by his friend Rough-House. Along the way, a boxing referee named Wimpy shows up, and begins sticking around, continually bugging Rough-House for a hamburger (to be paid for on Tuesday, naturally) and, at the least sign of impending violence, declaring "Let's you and him fight." (Though that sentence is one a boxing referee could use a lot in his working life, and Wimpy does.)

Also included on the Sunday pages are Segar's contemporaneous Sappo strips, about a Castor Oyl-ish inventor and his harried wife, which are more typical genre entries (BRINGING UP FATHER by way of Rube Goldberg) but have their own energy and verve.

Throughout it all, Segar's art is energetic and expressive, the printed-page equivalent of the black-and-white cartoons of the '20s, and his characters are broad and exciting but always identifiable. Popeye in particular has depths that later stories rarely dealt with: he's a brawling, gambling roughneck of a sailor, but he also has a huge soft spot for children and "brunecks" and a suitably Depression-era easy-come, easy-go attitude towards money. Seger's Thimble Theatre stories are great American originals, and they suffered the fate of every other great American original: to be watered down and redone a thousand times by a thousand hacks in search of a quick buck and a sure thing. But the original endures to be rediscovered, as often as necessary, and that's no small thing.


[1] After I typed this, I happened to look closely at the spine, where "Volume Two" also appears, in teeny-tiny type near the bottom.

[2] Its immortal first sentence:

From its inception in the mid-1910s, Elzie Crisler Segar's Thimble Theatre kept in mind that it was a theater indeed; and the outstanding result, and wondrous paradox, of this belief was that even the original cast -- Olive Oyl; her ferrety brother Castor; her staid, forbearing parents Nana Oyl and Cole Oyl; and her fiercely disconsolate suitor Ham Gravy -- occupied the foreground of the strip in physical presences, and, a fortiori, as it continued, and their proper demons entered them, their personalities.

Another excellent compendium of early Americana and social history as illustrated in the E. C. Segar Thimble Theatre comic pages. Nothing sanitised or homogenised about this. A must for the Popeye enthusiast. A delight on any coffee table or bedside stand.

I am a danish cartoonist/illustrator, and my style is on the funny side.
When I was a kid in the 50's I came to know some of the original Segar strips from some books an aunt of mine had in her shelf. That I never forgot. I have often returned to Popeye, and have exposed my son to him as well. When he was about 5 years old, he was a huge fan of the old black and white animated movies, and I had to paint an anchor on his arms every morning before he went to kindergarden. I gave him a small corn pipe as well, and he went around like Popeye in the movies, with his arms out to the side. And on day his teacher came and said: "I think he has a problem with his eyes, maybe you should take him to a doctor." But I could tell her, that it was just because he was playing Popeye, walking around with his right eye closed.
After my childhood came many frustrating years, where the only Popeye cartoons were the ones Segars successors made, and they were just a faint copy of the masters work. It was a seldom thing to fall over one of Segars original works.
So how can I describe how happy I was when Fantagraphics began this project. I bought the first volume, and could hardly wait for the next. I will follow this project to the very end.
I have noticed that the drawing style has rubbed off on my own style in the later years, and I love the humor.
Segar's original Popeye cartoons are a milestone in comic book history!!!