What do you think?
Rate this book
Popeye: An Illustrated Cultural History, 2d ed.
It's a rare comic character who can make audiences laugh for well over half a century--but then again, it's a pretty rare cartoon hero who can boast of forearms thicker than his waist, who can down a can of spinach in a single gulp, or who generally faces the world with one eye squinted completely shut. When E.C. Segar's gruff but lovable sailor man first tooted his pipe to the public on January 7, 1929, it was not in the animated cartoon format for which he is best known today (and which would become the longest running series in film history). Instead it was on the comics page of the New York Journal, as Segar's Thimble Theatre strip. Over the decades to come, Popeye was to appear on radio, television, stage, and even in a live-action feature film. This comprehensive and lavishly illustrated history is a thoroughly updated and revised edition of the highly acclaimed 1994 work. Animated series and films are examined, noting the different directions each studio took and the changing character designs of the Popeye family. Popeye in other media--comics, books, radio, and a stage play--is thoroughly covered, as are Robert Altman's 1980 live-action film, and Popeye memorabilia.
343 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1994
5 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
Fred M. Grandinetti
6 booksFred M. Grandinetti is an American author, noted Popeye connoisseur and founding member of the Official Popeye Fan Club. He has written several books on the subject, including: "Popeye: An Illustrated Cultural History"; "Popeye, the Collectible: Dolls, Coloring Books, Games, Toys, Comic Books, Animation"; "Popeye: An Illustrated History of E.C. Segar's Character in Print, Radio, Television, and Film Appearances 1929-1993"; and "He Am What He Am!: Jack Mercer, the Voice of Popeye". Grandinetti is also the host of the (often Popeye-featuring) television show Drawing With Fred.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 9, 2013
For "Popeye" history, this is an important book, but leave it to Grandinetti to take all the fun out of "Popeye" with his somnambulistic analysis of the cartoons, the movie, the merchandise, and the radio show. Analysis can be fun, especially from an educated fan, as Grandinetti appears to be, but reading it, you wonder if he actually likes "Popeye." Of course he does, otherwise he wouldn't have written this book, but still.
August 23, 2020
Leggermente pesantino....
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 1, 2023
A fun and fact-filled little book which explores the history of Popeye and fellow characters from the original Segar comic strips to the various animated offerings from the 90s. Well-illustrated.
August 7, 2023
This is a near-excellent history and reference work marred only by occasional bad copy editing and occasional dumb writing when the fanboy writes nonsense that will only be believed by another fan.
September 2, 2025
This concise book primarily discusses the evolution of TV cartoons rather than the Thimble Theatre comic. Perspective becomes confusing when the author refers to himself in the third person.
January 20, 2016
BLUF: Too much personal history from the author on the subject. Too much tangential information about subjects not directly related to the so-called "cultural history" of the subject. Too much information repeated too many times about the various cartoons and the studios that produced them. Oh and too much about the cartoons and not really enough about providing a full "illustrated cultural history" of the subject.
Review:
This is supposed to be the illustrated history of Popeye. This should have been titled, "Popeye, a history of his cartoons" for all the history that it gives towards that half of the subject. The author skips over the other half of the history of Popeye with his start as a secondary character in some comic strip and his various comic strip or comic book authors. The author gives a chapter to these gentlemen, but barely talks about some of the classic story lines that were created here that would see recreation later in the films and cartoons. After a chapter of "...and this comic artist was born here and took over from this other one on his retirement..." sort of information. The book begins to get into some serious detail and starts to tread into information overload as if all of a sudden the author found his muse with the cartoon version of the sailor.
Which must have been the moving pictures from the Fleischer Cartoons to the Robert Altman movie and a few attempts at revival in the late 80s with the various studios such as Fleischer which then became Famous and then Paramounts low cost cartoons and then Hanna-Barbara's take on the sailor. It is here that there is more details than one can deal with. From ramblings about the various types of afternoon kiddie shows, such as the comments about how every station in the 50s and into the mid 80s had a Bozo the Clown or Uncle Arty, even talking about which stations came out with the concept first. Since that sort of information is tangential to how these shows used the early Fleischer Cartoons and the later Famous and Paramount with minimum licensing fees, it is included but really why is it here for pages and pages instead of just a paragraph or two. There is also way too much personal injection by the author, at least in my opinion, about some of items covered. We will be rolling through the history of the various cartoon studios or the directors given in charge and what they did with the intellectual property, only to be interrupted by a page or two of a "there I was as a 6 yr old little boy when I had a chance to meet a live actor who..." or "but both me and my friends who were watching these shows as kids didn't....." and talking about some moment of the author's personal history with the shows. Which is interesting, but not for a page or more.
Even more annoying with the book that is supposed to be an "illustrated history" is that there is a large amount of ads from the magazines or media pushing the kiddie show hours, which as the author admits just recycled the 30s, 40s and on cartoons that were available for purchase. There is limited word space and photographs offered up to the various merchandising throughout the years and even worse is there is limited number of photographs of some of the actors, the artists (comic and cartoon) and even the producers that gave us Popeye. So there is little cultural history and more personal history of the author and his love for Popeye.
As I mentioned the author goes into information overload, with not only who all the cartoons and film sub characters were and main cast, but also runs through which cartoons they were in. Then repeats the information except in listing all the plot lines verbatim again in an appendix, of which he already covered in talking about the various studios production values and issues with society changes as Popeye was around. In the end I thought this was going to be an interesting book about a favorite cartoon star of mine, but it was by about the half way point a drag and I really had to push myself to finish it. This book needs a good editor if any other editions come out (and there should be because the author should talk about the reprints by Fantagraphics and IDW of the original strips and the later Bud Sagendorf strips/comic books all of which have come out since 2006), the editor needs to edit some of the details and personal trivia of the author out in exchange for more details on the history of the character and the people involved with him.
There is a good genesis of a history book here, but really needs to be worked on again in another edition to be more on target.
Review:
This is supposed to be the illustrated history of Popeye. This should have been titled, "Popeye, a history of his cartoons" for all the history that it gives towards that half of the subject. The author skips over the other half of the history of Popeye with his start as a secondary character in some comic strip and his various comic strip or comic book authors. The author gives a chapter to these gentlemen, but barely talks about some of the classic story lines that were created here that would see recreation later in the films and cartoons. After a chapter of "...and this comic artist was born here and took over from this other one on his retirement..." sort of information. The book begins to get into some serious detail and starts to tread into information overload as if all of a sudden the author found his muse with the cartoon version of the sailor.
Which must have been the moving pictures from the Fleischer Cartoons to the Robert Altman movie and a few attempts at revival in the late 80s with the various studios such as Fleischer which then became Famous and then Paramounts low cost cartoons and then Hanna-Barbara's take on the sailor. It is here that there is more details than one can deal with. From ramblings about the various types of afternoon kiddie shows, such as the comments about how every station in the 50s and into the mid 80s had a Bozo the Clown or Uncle Arty, even talking about which stations came out with the concept first. Since that sort of information is tangential to how these shows used the early Fleischer Cartoons and the later Famous and Paramount with minimum licensing fees, it is included but really why is it here for pages and pages instead of just a paragraph or two. There is also way too much personal injection by the author, at least in my opinion, about some of items covered. We will be rolling through the history of the various cartoon studios or the directors given in charge and what they did with the intellectual property, only to be interrupted by a page or two of a "there I was as a 6 yr old little boy when I had a chance to meet a live actor who..." or "but both me and my friends who were watching these shows as kids didn't....." and talking about some moment of the author's personal history with the shows. Which is interesting, but not for a page or more.
Even more annoying with the book that is supposed to be an "illustrated history" is that there is a large amount of ads from the magazines or media pushing the kiddie show hours, which as the author admits just recycled the 30s, 40s and on cartoons that were available for purchase. There is limited word space and photographs offered up to the various merchandising throughout the years and even worse is there is limited number of photographs of some of the actors, the artists (comic and cartoon) and even the producers that gave us Popeye. So there is little cultural history and more personal history of the author and his love for Popeye.
As I mentioned the author goes into information overload, with not only who all the cartoons and film sub characters were and main cast, but also runs through which cartoons they were in. Then repeats the information except in listing all the plot lines verbatim again in an appendix, of which he already covered in talking about the various studios production values and issues with society changes as Popeye was around. In the end I thought this was going to be an interesting book about a favorite cartoon star of mine, but it was by about the half way point a drag and I really had to push myself to finish it. This book needs a good editor if any other editions come out (and there should be because the author should talk about the reprints by Fantagraphics and IDW of the original strips and the later Bud Sagendorf strips/comic books all of which have come out since 2006), the editor needs to edit some of the details and personal trivia of the author out in exchange for more details on the history of the character and the people involved with him.
There is a good genesis of a history book here, but really needs to be worked on again in another edition to be more on target.
May 30, 2012
Ever wonder if Brutus and Bluto were the same guy? This is the book for you. BTW- they are not.
June 1, 2013
A tremendously valuable guide to all things Popeye, written by someone who deeply loves the character. The love shows! Highly recommended!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews