E.C. Segar was born on this date.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

He did stuff like this before creating Popeye.

[Miguelito Loveless]

1. Some interesting trivia

- The strip was originally called "Thimble Theater" and Popeye did not show up as a character until after the strip had been running ten years.

- Popeye was meant as a "one off character".

- The main villain in Segar's Popeye was the Sea Hag, not Bluto. Bluto showed up many years later, shortly before Segar died, but around the time the first cartoon versions of the strip came out.

- Many characters you never heard of, because they didn't appear in the cartoons, were prominent in the strips.

- The writing for the strip was much better and way less formulaic than the later cartoons. Only Max Fleischer's work comes anywhere close to the original strips, and it still misses a lot (though they are animation masterpieces surpassing Disney).

- Popeye was quite progressive for the day, as he opposed spanking children.

- To truly enjoy the REAL Popeye, get your hands on a dead tree edition or a digital edition of the multi-volume "The Complete E.C. Segar's Popeye".

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

2. Certainly the early cartoons

are literal works of art. Everything from the backgrounds, story lines and especially the dialogue Popeye's mutterings are wonderful. Yes, heady stuff for a charecter meant to appear once in the strip.

[Miguelito Loveless]

3. Segar was asked about why he brought Popeye back

And he answered to the effect that "He kept hanging around my drawing table, so I started sticking him back in"