PopCult Rudy Panucci on Pop Culture

2017 PopCult Gift Guide: Classic Popeye books

gg-popeyeWe kick off today’s 2017 PopCult Gift Guide with a comics pick that can’t go wrong with anybody who likes great, classic comic books. I have been a huge fan of Craig Yoe’s Popeye Classics comic book that reprints all of the great Popeye comics written and drawn by Bud Sagendorf. IDW and Yoe Books collect every few issues into a cool hardback collection with bigger pages and bonus material and historical articles, and these are a worthy addition to the library of any lover of the great comics.

I’ve been recommending Popeye collections in the PopCult Gift Guide for over ten years, so you know that I’m fond of the Sailor Man. I’m also a stickler for high quality, and after the original comic strips by E.C. Segar, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any better Popeye than Sagendorf’s.

There are currently ten hardcover volumes available in the Popeye Classics series. Each one is a winner, collecting four or five issues of the Popeye Classics series, along with bonus material. These can probably be ordered from any bookseller. For the sake of convenience, I’m going to give you a link to an Amazon page HERE that has all ten volumes, plus the two collections of Popeye strips by Bobby London that I recommended in the Gift Guide a couple of years ago.

Each volume re-presents the classic Popeye comic book series that debuted in 1948, complete with Bud Sagendorf’s covers, stories, one-pagers and the O.G. Wotasnozzle back up strips. Sagendorf was a long-time assistant to Popeye’s creator, E.C. Segar, and came closer than anyone else to matching Segar’s brilliance.

Sagendorf, who passed away in 1994, wrote and drew more Popeye comic strips and books than any other cartoonist.  When Bud was just 17, his sister, who worked in an art supply store in Santa Monica, California, introduced him to a customer, E.C. Segar, the creator of Popeye. Bud began a long relationship with Segar who became his teacher, employer, and father figure. After Segar’s passing, Bud produced comic books for 24 years, penned the daily strip, and drew art for licensing products.

Any of the Popeye Classics volumes would make a terrific gift for the comics lover on your gift list, or you could splurge and buy them all ten. You have to ask yourself, “What would Popeye do?”