Cover Cavalcade

A really fun cover by Bud Sagendorf from 1962.

Popeye vs. a Dinosaur

Though it is a subject that doesn't seem to come up too much in casual conversation (a fact I personally find bizarre), it is fortunate that we live in a world where we can find out who would win a fight between the world's toughest sailer and a dinosaur. In fact, would a world without that information be one worth living in at all?  I think not.

Dell Comics' Popeye #33 (July-September 1955) was published during a run that had Bud Sagendorf both writing and drawing the stories. Sagendorf's work on Popeye is brilliant--full of truly funny gags, great stories and wonderful art work. Popeye has had a lot of good writers recounting his adventures over the decades, but Sagendorf is the only one who rivals E.C. Segar as the perfect writer/artist for the character.

"Monskers!" begins with Popey and Swee'Pea camping in the desert. Swee'Pea finds a small tunnel that leads into a hidden valley, where he's promptly menanced by a brontosaurus. Popeye crawls through the tunnel to rescue him, but the two end up trapped atop a mesa.

Popeye's first attempt to deal with the dinosaur doesn't work out too well. But, fortunately, Swee'Pea remembers that he just happened to bring along a spinach sandwich. So Popeye powers up, but does not simply start punching out the brontosaurus.

Because an important part of Popeye's character is his fair-mindedness and his compassion. Popeye gets into a lot of fights and often enjoys himself in the midst of a brawl, but he is never a bully and he never chooses to fight when he can make a friend instead. When writers such as Bud Sagendorf get this, Popeye rises above being a comedic character and becomes truly awesome.

So Popeye gives the brontosaurus a good talking to and tries to tame him. Of course, the requirements of slapstick means this fails utterly. But it really is neat to see him try.

Well, when a fight is indeed necessary, Popeye will indeed fight. And, powered up with spinach, he makes short work of the dinosaur.

Which turns out not to be a dinosaur, but a robot about to be used to film a scene in a movie. So Popeye and Swee'Pea spend the night fixing the damage they had done.

"Monskers!" is a great story, combining expertly choreographed slapstick with great dialogue and a keen understanding of who Popeye is.

But then, we don't really find out what would happen if Popeye fought a dinosaur, do we? The dinosaur turns out to be a robot. That question actually is unanswered! 

The world is doomed.

Well, despite the doom, we will return next week with a look at the final part of the Avengers battle with Count Nefaria.

"Ya kin not hit a ghosk, 'cause they is jus' air!"

There have been a number of skilled writers and artists who have given us great Popeye stories over the years, but the one person who comes closest to matching E.C. Segar (Popeye's creator) in giving us Segar's unique synthesis of slapstick and grand adventure is Bud Sagendorf, who wrote and drew Popeye comics for Dell.

Popeye #3 (August-October 1948) is a prime example of this. The cover story is a 32-pager titled "Ghost Island," which actually starts out with Popeye refusing to go on an adventure.

That's because this particular adventure involves delivering ghost traps to the appropriately-named Ghost Island, where the island's sole inhabitant is simply tired of being haunted.

Popeye doesn't want to tangle with ghosts. You can't fight something intangible and throwing a punch is pretty much Popeye's sole tactic for dealing with dangerous situations. But though Popeye wants to leave the ghosts alone, the ghosts don't want to leave him alone.

But when Swee'Pea is snatched by a ghost, Popeye pretty much has to get involved.      

I love how Sagendorf draws the ghosts--everything about them exudes a casual matter-of-factness that just makes the situation that much more hilarious.

What follows is both exciting and funny. Popeye sails with the cargo of ghost traps for ghost island. Olive Oil stows away on board disguised as one of the ghost--only to walk into one of the traps. The ghosts sabotage the compass, sending the boat wildly off course. When they finally arrive on the island, their client is livid when he sees a dozen ghosts (along with their luggage) disembarking.

In the end, it turns out the ghosts are just guys wearing sheets, hired by the ghost trap salesman to drum up business. And Swee'Pea? He turns out to be working for the "ghosts" as well--the little brat took a bribe to help out.

The salesman, by the way, turns out to be someone who is always in need of money--otherwise, he would have to pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. When Popeye finally finds out what's going on--he indulges himself by beating up a lot of "ghosts" and then having words with Wimpy.

The trouble with reviewing a story like this is that it brings to mind the old saying about analyzing humor: It's like dissecting a frog--you can do it, but the frog dies in the process. A brief summary of the story simply does not do it justice and the humor has a delightful sort of bizarre-ness to it that makes it difficult to describe at all. Like E.C. Segar's original comic strip, Bud Sagendorf's Popeye stories have to be read to be truly appreciated. 

Next week, we return to giant robots fighting giant monsters--the obvious fallback position when you don't have Popeye available to simply punch out the monsters.

Cover Cavalcade

It doesn't look like he has any duct tape. Without duct tape, I'm afraid Popeye is doomed.

The Fleischer Studio Popeyes

Last year, Warner Brothers put out a wonderful DVD set featuring 60 of the original, mostly black-and-white Popeye cartoons.

One of the many really neat qualities of the Popeye cartoons (and the Fleischer cartoons in general) is the seamless mesh of animation with music. These cartoons are timed to perfection--body language, movement and action all exquisitely match the accompanying music, which makes watching them an addictive experience.

One of the cartoons--The Man on the Flying Trapeze--is one of the few I had never seen before. It's so much fun to watch, I replayed it three times before finally moving on to the next cartoon on the disc.

Of course, now I have the song stuck in my head, but I've learned to live with that.

The DVD set is worth getting, both for the cartoons and the nifty little documentaries. But you can also see many of these cartoons on-line (most, if not all of them, have fallen into the public domain).

So if you want to risk being glued to your computer screen all day, unable to do anything productive, take a look at this link:

The Man on the Flying Trapeze