Popeye Volume 1: Olive Oyl and Her Sweety

by E.C. Segar

Well, blow me down! This new four-volume series collects the complete run of the original Popeye Sunday newspaper page adventures in an accessible and affordable slipcased paperback format!  An irresistible alchemy of screwball comedy, tender romance, and rags-to-riches fantasy, Elsie Crisler Segar's newspaper comic strip captivated readers of the Roaring Twenties and beyond. And Popeye, the sailor man, was the unlikely star of the show. Fantagraphics is thrilled to bring Segar's whimsical world back into print, reviving the origins of the beloved spinach-eating American icon for a whole new readership. The E.C. Segar Popeye Sundays series collects the complete Popeye Sunday stories in four gorgeous full-color volumes, each packaged in a deluxe die-cut vertical slipcase.

Volume one (1931-1932) highlights Popeye's riotous romance with his sweet patootie, Olive Oyl. As apt to hold hands as butt heads, they are ultimately meant for each other, and their enduring connection forms the warm heart of the comic. Outside the love nest, Popeye seeks fame and fortune as a prizefighter. Ever the under-dog, he must contend with a series of increasingly fearsome opponents, from the formidable Johnny Brawn to a literal gorilla!

Featuring tongue-twisting gags, sensational slugfests, and an endearing ensemble of characters, this revival of classic Popeye adventures really packs a punch and will captivate stalwart fans and new readers alike. Introduced with comic tributes by acclaimed cartoonists Sergio Ponchione and Cathy Malkasian.
Full color

Genres: Comics, Comedy

120 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1932

About the author

Elzie Crisler Segar was a cartoonist, best known as the creator of Popeye, a pop culture character who first appeared in 1929 in Segar's comic strip Thimble Theatre.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collects the first two years of Popeye Sunday strips by EC Segar. It is good shit. Bluto/Brutus hasn't been introduced yet, nor have the Sea Hag, Eugene the Jeep, Alice the Goon, or a lot of the other familiar Popeye characters but his on again, off again romance with Olive Oyl is in full swing. Most of the tales revolve Popeye trying to win Olive or Popeye boxing someone. I had no idea boxing was such a big part of early Popeye.

EC Segar's Sunday strips have a lot of energy to them. It helps that they're four tiers of six panels each and Segar makes great use of the real estate. Popeye beats the shit out of kinds of fighters and usually gives away or loses the prize money when he's done. Oddly enough, his love for spinach doesn't factor in until the very last strip.

Five out of five stars. I'll grab volume 2 when it's released.

[Δημήτρης Μπ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Presentation: 4.5/5*

Very well designed slipcase edition of the first 2 years of Popeye's weekly one-page stories by E.C. Segar. I really like the fact that the case looks like a frame that could even be hanged on a wall and its combination with the volume shows beautifully on the bookshelf. It would be even more perfect if the volume had hard cover.

Stories: 3.5/5*

I admit my knowledge of Popeye derives from the movies (mostly animated) and a few newer stories that I've read during my childhood. Volume 1 of the series contains the origin of the character via his first stories, so a lot of the characters that us younger audiences know, weren't even created back then. These one-shots have to do either with Popeye trying to win Olive's heart, or with him fighting. I didn't really like the fact that he is portrayed like a mindless "ogre" constantly looking for fights, sometimes with no apparent reason. In newer stories his character is better written, in my opinion. However, I had some laughs and there are some heart-warming scenes too (when he supports children or poor families, for example).

[Trey Lusk · Rating 3 out of 5]

parts are extremely charming, you root for popeye and olive oyl. but most pages end with the punchline of him beating people up.

we saw the start of the hamburger gag and spinach so some highlights

[Norman Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

2022 Eisner Award winner - Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips (at least 20 years old)
2022 Eisner Award finalist - Best Publication Design

These strips look gorgeous, so a well deserved win for best archival collection. The strips themselves, ranging from 1930 to 1932, are a somewhat mixed bag, but mostly good. Some readers will undoubtedly get tired of the constant fighting--this is certainly not a politically correct work of art in the 21st Century. Popeye never met a problem he couldn't solve with a sock on someone's chin. Yet, Popeye has a childlike charm, which is what makes him lovable. He will pound a gorilla into the ground, but turn around and give away a fortune to orphans. The style of comic strips from almost a century ago are quite different than modern comics, with lots of text that takes time to read. One of the interesting things about this collection is seeing how Popeye's character design evolved over time. If you're only familiar with Popeye in cartoons, be aware that these strips are more violent, and probably funnier (and only a brief appearance by spinach at the very end).

[Jaime Guzman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic Popeye Sunday comic strips by E.C. Segar!
Reading these comic strips for the first time I can see why this scruffy one eyed sailor is so likeable.
It's wonderfully drawn and funny. Popeye is a gambler and a brawler who is always looking to win the affection of his sweety, Olive Oyl.
Great fun!! Highly recommended!

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Popeye was never a favorite of mine. I never read the comic, but reruns of the cartoon were inescapable in my early childhood. But the moment I started reading, I heard the voices. A very vivid memory of watching an episode floated up… very trippy.
This character was an oldie when I was little, so I thought my kids would have no clue. It certainly was not part of their cartoon lineup, ever. After I finished I asked my kids if they knew who Popeye was, and to my surprise both did. “The Sailor Man, right? Spinach?” Well blow me down! This was such a popular character that in 2022, a 12 and 14 year old are familiar with him, even if they don’t quite know why. Such is the power of memes. Amazing.
Since the cartoon was not a favorite, I had low expectations for the comic strip. And taken as a book it is repetitive and not always engaging. But it was a volume operation, so I can forgive the overall lack of story. Still - I laughed out loud more than once. This was silly and amusing - what more do you want out of the Sunday funny paper?

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed these so much more than I thought I might ... since I like mythology and fantasy and was hoping to see the Sea Hag, but this was mostly Popeye punching people who irked him. And yet there was something so sweet about the whole endeavour. Reading old comics in order makes me feel like I've stumbled across a time machine, in a way that reading old novels doesn't (presumably because comics are seen as ephemeral, while a great novel might be for the ages). I could be sitting at home, turning the Sunday paper to the Thimble Theatre page, and seeing what hijinks Popeye got up to this week. What fun!

(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd only had limited experience with the early Popeye strips, so this collection of Sunday ones seemed appealing. It's funny seeing how much of Popeye was really fully formed from the jump and other aspects developing over time through the course of this book (such as him being a defender of children, and the strip where he convinces customers at a roughhouse diner to eat spinach). It's also fun to see a newspaper comic with large panels that the artist got to play around with, something that was vanishingly rare when I was a kid and is even moreso now.

[Rick Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well presented collection of E.C. Segar's Popeye Sundays. I'm not really into strips, but Segar's illustrations are dynamic despite the rigid 16-panel grids he was limited to. Even for a comic strip in the '30s, Segar incorporates antiquated dialogue to add some additional charm to the stories. The strips don't have any sense of continuity, allowing the reader to hop in and out of Popeye's life as desired. It's not my preferred form of storytelling, but Segar's ability to tell fresh stories with each strip is truly admirable. Easily the best strip in the collection is the final one which incorporates the well-known use of spinach to endow Popeye with additional strength. This kind of storytelling is simple yet charming, idiosyncratic yet iconic.

[Evan Suggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Popeye is behind only Krazy Kat in comics from this era in inventiveness. But the reason it was far more popular is probably it's earthiness and relatability. Krazy Kat is relatable only in the most abstract way, whereas Popeye is taking the world as we know it and breaking out of it

[Aidan Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

For being a sailor, Popeye sure spends almost all his time on land in his comics. Suspicious. But when it's this much fun, it's easy to ignore and just have a good time watching him get in boxing match after boxing match, punching cops, and bankrupting capitalists!

[Noah Satern · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are classic comics but still feel fresh. The colors are great. Highly recommend for fans of Popeye and classic comics

[Neil Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This situation calls for more malapropisms than The Sopranos and extreme violence

[Ronald Fink · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, let me say, I love Popeye! I have since I was a little boy growing up in the early 1960s. Early on I was exposed to the old Max Fleischer Popeye B&W cartoons on TV, and also Bud Sagendorf's rendition of the one-eyed sailor in comic books my mother provided for me each month from our local drug store. But it wasn't until many years later that I finally picked up a couple of reprint books of Popeye's daily newspaper strips by his creator E.C. Segar. What a joy that was!

This particular book reprints many of the Sunday color strips from the early 1930s. What a great introduction for those who may have never ventured into the early adventures of Segar's one-eyed sailor. Unlike the Fleischer cartoons and those that followed, Popeye is more than capable to defeat his foes without the need to gulp down a can of spinach. He's tough on his opponents as a pugilist, but has a heart of gold for all those who are oppressed and in need.

Olive Oyl, Popeye's sweetheart is central to many of these strips as she tries to reform him from his pugilistic ways. Can she? I won't say. You'll need to read for yourself. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in classic comic strip characters. And boy oh boy, is Popeye a character!

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating of 3 stars is entirely about my very subjective response to these comic strips. At times I was charmed and amused to the hilt. Other moments I was sick and tired of the boxing matches and of Popeye beating up any potential suitor for Olive Oyl, no matter how mild-mannered the new rival. The violence and repetitiveness grated on me. But I realize that is the nature of the beast when dealing with the 1930s Popeye.

The production levels on the collection are amazing. E.C. Segar's drawings are always appealing. And I do love Popeye's unmistakable way of speaking. Probably my favorite sequences here were when Popeye would come into a huge windfall of money (usually a boxing purse), propose to Olive promising to buy her a dream house, and then he'd run into an impoverished woman with too many children and give her all the money. Or in one case, a crowd of children beg ice-cream and candy off him, inspiring the line in the candy shop: "I wants a thousing dollars' worth of jelly beans." Popeye is a brutal brawler with heart of pink ice cream!

[Mark]

LJ 146 (12), December 2021