[Meeting…] Popeye

Today I am going to talk about a fairly well-known character, although in most cases only superficially, since there are many people who have the wrong idea about some things that define the character, such as the origin of his super strength, his supposed eternal rivalry with Brutus or his relationship with Olivia.

And precisely that is why this section exists, to introduce you to characters that you may not know and at the same time offer you some curious facts about those that are familiar to you, as is surely the case with Popeye.

The original Popeye

In 1919 Elzie Crisler Segar created a comic strip called Thimble Theater for the newspaper New York Journal, which would star a girl named Olivia along with her brother (Castor), her father (Cole), her mother (Nana) and boyfriend (Ham Gravy). Many may be surprised to learn that Olivia's boyfriend was not Popeye, or that the character did not even exist in the adventures of Olivia and her family, a situation that lasted 10 years.

In 1929 Segar introduced Popeye in a story where they needed a sailor to pilot a ship on an adventure in which a magical chicken named Bernice appeared, which gave enormous luck to those who owned it (a situation that Castor wanted to take advantage of to get rich). During the adventure Popeye is injured and Bernice saves him by giving him his usual powers, yes friends, no spinach, Popeye got his powers from a magical chicken.

The introduction of Popeye in the strips Thimble Theater It was going to be temporary, but for some reason the character was liked a lot and Segar decided to include him more often, to the point that he decided that Olivia would leave her boyfriend Ham and have an affair with the sailor. In those same strips, many other secondary characters also appeared, such as Pilon, King Blozo, Eugene the Jeep, the Sea Witch, his henchman Alice, Cocoliso or Bluto (better known as Brutus).

Continuing Segar's legacy

Segar's death in 1938 caused his characters to fall into the hands of other artists, at the same time that Popeye continued his rise to popularity, which caused the particular sailor to star in his own adventures in the 1950s and the title of the strip Thimble Theater go to Thimble Theater Starring Popeye in the 60s and finally Popeye in the 70s.

However, if anything helped Segar's character achieve global fame, it was undoubtedly his short films and animated series that lasted for several decades. The first series appeared in the 1930s under the name Popeye The Sailor (Popeye the sailor) by Paramount Pictures, the second appeared in the 1960s produced by King Features Syndicate, the third in the late 1970s, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions.

Despite the inclusion of characters from Thimble Theater In the Popeye series, it cannot be said that they were a carbon copy of Segar's strips, as demonstrated by the fact that Brutus, a character who appeared only once in the original strips, had now become Popeye's archenemy, forming a love triangle between the two of them and Olivia. Pilon and the baby Cocoliso would also make an appearance in these strips, in addition to other characters invented exclusively for them.

Other changes included were the fact that Popeye acted in a more patriotic manner (there are many episodes in which he beats Nazis or other "enemies of the nation" to the sound of Stars and Stripes), giving rise to some studies that claim that Popeye is the representation of how Americans saw themselves (kind, but not afraid of resorting to violence).

It was in these series where the idea that Popeye obtained his strength through spinach became popular, giving rise to some anecdotes that I will comment on later.

Many years later the character did not seem to lose strength, which is why a live-action film was made where Robin Williams played the sailor in 1980 and another animated series in 1989 called Popeye and Son, which showed the descendant of the couple formed by Popeye and Olivia, who, despite inheriting some of his father's skills, hated spinach.

Curiosities about Popeye

The inclusion of spinach as a source of Popeye's supernatural strength gave rise to certain speculations, which clearly stated that they were an allusion to Cannabis (being inhaled by Popeye through his pipe on many occasions) to make matters worse, in one of the chapters from the 50s Popeye said that he was a descendant of Hercules and the Greek god was shown snorting garlic (which led to adding fuel to the drug issue). It is therefore not strange that in some parody series such as Drawn Together (The House of Drawings) is directly associated with Popeye with drug use (as demonstrated by his tattoos).

On the other hand, the fact that Popeye consumed spinach to become stronger caused the sale of said product to increase considerably, to the point that in various cities where they were dedicated to the production of spinach, such as Crystal City (the self-proclaimed spinach capital of the world) they placed statues in honor of the character as a way of thanking them. In short, all to discover years later that spinach is not the source of iron that we had been led to believe.

Another interesting fact about Popeye is that he is considered the precursor of the classic American superheroes, as he already showed elements that were later seen in characters like Superman (who was originally much more serious and brutal than the one we know today). Perhaps for that reason DC Comics created a character based on Popeye called Captain Strong, who had no qualms about facing the man of steel.

The last curiosity related to Popeye has to do with his appearance, since it is said that Segar was based on a real person to create him (which certainly seems fantastic due to the sailor's deformed appearance). That person was Frank “Rocky” Fiegel, a tough guy who loved fighting, who apparently was not very good-looking, but who was immortalized by the popular character, as demonstrated by the fact that Popeye is drawn on Frank's grave.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Pese a que me resultan muy curiosos los diseños de los personajes de Segar, he de admitir que nunca he sido muy fan de Popeye. Supongo que eso se debe a que la serie de animación que vi de pequeño mostraba a Popeye, Olivia y Brutus como personajes muy irritantes. Olivia era un personaje odioso que de un momento a otro era secuestrada por Brutus o se iba con él por propia voluntad dejando a Popeye de lado, y los dos “machos alfa” que peleaban por su amor no pasaban de ser dos brutos sin demasiado cerebro, los cuales habrían hecho una mejor pareja como camaradas que como rivales.

En cuanto a las recomendaciones sobre este personaje, pasan por las series de animación, las películas y los diversos cómics que ha protagonizado a lo largo de los años. Si queréis leer las aventuras clásicas del marinero podéis buscar algunos recopilatorios, como los cómics de IDW.