Popeye the Sailor!
( All images copyright 1979 King Features)
The page for fans of Popeye,
the greatest sailor ever to sail the
seven seas.
About Popeye
Popeye was created by Elzie Segar a cartoonist who wrote the strip
Thimble Theatre in the late teens and early twenties. This
strip originally had the characters of Olive Oyl, Ham Gravy (Olive's
first boyfriend), Cole and Nana Oyl (Olive's parents) and Castor Oyl.
On January 17, 1929, Popeye made his first appearance in the strip.
His first words, a reply to the question, "Are you a sailor?" ; were
"Ja think I'm a cowboy!" Needless to say, Popeye went on to
be the most popular character in the strip and one of the greatest
comic characters ever. In the thirties, the Fleischer Brothers (who
created Betty Boop) introduced Popeye as a character in Popeye the Sailor Long after (alas) Betty was
forgotten the Sailor stayed in our public consciousness.
To find out more about Popeye, read the book by Bud Sagendorf on the
occasion of Popeye's 50th birthday.
Recently a new family of genes was discovered (Andrée et al., Dev Biol
223, p. 371-382) which was named after Popeye; so after almost 75
years Popeye is still at the frontline of modern life!
The US Postal service acknowledges our favorite comic character!
Take a look at some pictures.
Additional links
Suggestions? email: bard@pitt.edu ( Bard Ermentrout )
