Book Review: Popeye Vol. 1 – “I Yam What I Yam” by E.C. Segar - Page 2

To those primarily familiar with the Popeye of the cartoons, the original Segar model is an even more unrefined figure. "Unidjicated" and prone to brawling for the fun of it, the early Popeye is an unrestrained, if big-hearted bruiser prone to popping guys in the jaw just because he doesn't like their looks, much to the dismay of his would-be boss, Castor. (That Popeye's "instincks" invariably prove right is, of course, part of the joke.)

Profoundly superstitious (and fearful of "spiriks"), he's childlike in his readiness to take credit for Castor's occasional bouts of real braininess, yet ever ready to defend anyone he thinks is being unfairly picked on. He's a much more full-dimensional character than the one audiences saw in the eight-minute Fleischer cartoons - in large part, because Segar had the space and inclination to let all of his main cast be their comically flawed selves.

There's a lotta reading in this volume of strips. Unlike today's newspaper funnies, Segar had the room to tell each day in five to six panel offerings, which he crammed with colorful dialog. The pacing is subsequently much more leisurely than most modern comics readers are accustomed to, but it pays off in the strip's delightfully quirky characterization.

Much of Volume One's adventures are devoted to misdeeds of a series of land-lubbing sneaks and swindlers, most notably a Mister Snork who shows up twice to riddle Popeye full of bullets, only to have the indefatigable bruiser rise up and smack him on the chin. (Snork has, Popeye sez more than once, a chin he loves to smack.)

In one episode, Popeye is taken to the hospital to get a brace of Snork's slugs removed, only to be distressed when he learns that the surgeons have left an unlucky thirteen bullets still inside him. He demands to be cut open again, so they can take another slug out or put one back in.

The most memorable antagonist in this opening volley of Popeye adventures is a character we meet at sea: the nefarious Sea Hag. A malevolent and avaricious creature who would bedevil Popeye over the years, the Hag shows Segar mining a realm of comic spookiness with a sense of the genuinely sinister that few cartoonists would even dare to try and match. Though his drawing remained cartoonish and confined to the same visual plane (the Thimble Theater being largely seen through an imaginary comic strip proscenium), there are images of the Hag that linger long after you've squeezed this collection onto your bookshelf. She was one creepy creation.

Article Author: Bill Sherman

Bill Sherman is the Comics & Graphic Novels review editor for Blogcritics. With his lovely wife Rebecca Fox, he has recently co-authored a sudsy size acceptance novel entitled Measure By Measure.

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