Chew the Fat: About a Certain Sailor Man ( Who Chews Spinach)...

 

Redartz: "Well, blow me down!" This week, way back in 1929, a monumental event was recorded in the newspapers of the day: the first appearance of a squinty-eyed, massively muscled, pipe smoking sailor named Popeye. He actually started as a bit player in a comic strip called "Thimble Theatre", but soon his popularity propelled him into a starring role. Popeye's creator was Elzie Segar, who told his tales until 1938, when Segar's assistant Bud Sagendorf took the reins (upon Segar's passing). These tales were filled with humor and adventure, and with many odd characters. Among Popeye's acquaintances were Olive Oyl (his girlfriend, who actually preceded him in "Thimble Theatre"), her brother Castor ("Castor Oyl", get it?) and J. Wellington Wimpy (eternally in search of a free meal). His foes included Bluto and the Sea Hag. And then there were those characters less simple to categorize: remember Eugene the Jeep? Alice the Goon?  And that's just the tiniest tip of the iceberg.

Many of us probably met these characters first in the Popeye cartoons that were omnipresent on Saturday mornings and afterschool afternoons. Whether the theatrical cartoons from Max Fleisher Studios...

 

 Or the television cartoons from King Features...

...chances are every one of us could sing his theme song by heart. Certainly the melody will live eternally in our collective  memories. As will the perfect voice characterizations: Jack Mercer's  Popeye and Mae Questal's Olive Oyl. Those cartoons were definitely among my favorites; and I for one was very pleased to eventually learn that the spinach-munching hero was featured in print!

Indeed,  his newspaper strip continues still. He was also featured in countless comic books; with artists such as "Chick" Henderson and George Wildman. Like the Hanna Barbera creations, Popeye was published by a variety of companies through the years: Dell, Gold Key, Charlton and Harvey among them. Here's a few examples, showing some of those inimitable characters we mentioned above...

 Our UK friends may have encountered Popeye in an Annual such as this one...

 This brief overview is but a taste; a prompter for your memories and opinions. Let's discuss all things relevant to Popeye and his various "entertainminks"...

Off the Bookshelf: Big Little Books- Big Fun in a Small Package...

Redartz:  One of the 'little' pleasures of my youth was a series of small books, combining text with panel illustrations on a facing page. Featuring a wide array of familiar characters placed into novel-length adventures, and priced at a level my allowance would cover: yes, Big Little Books! 

 



BLB's actually first appeared in 1932, published by Whitman (the same company who provided them for our perusal in the 60's and 70's). In those days the books were filled with tales of Slam Bradley, Mickey Mouse, The Gumps, The Shadow, and many other stars of film, radio and the pulps. 










In our era, of course, they added in many favorites from television: Flipper, Lassie, Daktari, Frankenstein Jr., and many many more. I had quite a few of these thick tomes, stacked alongside my beloved comics. Some of those I recall most fondly: Popeye ("Ghost Ship to Treasure  Island"), Bugs Bunny ("Double Trouble on Diamond Island"), and Donald Duck ("The Fabulous Diamond Fountain") . I know, we see a pattern of sorts here- they all seemed to combine the lure of treasure and some element of menace; a pairing hard to resist for any kid. 

One I recall especially well:  Woody Woodpecker ("The Meteor Menace"). Indeed, this is one I've managed to reacquire in recent years, and got a kick out of reading it again. Here you see the opening page, showing the standard format of text on the right, illustrations on the left. No credits were given for the creators, unfortunately (The Fantastic Four BLB has art that greatly resembles Kirby, but I don't think it actually was). The story itself is full of gimmicks, tricks, gadgets, and mysteries (Woody's nephew Knothead even has a secret spy kit that proves integral to the plot). At 250 pages, it makes for a pretty long tale, albeit a quick one to read (after all, you only get about a paragraph on a page).

Those old BLB's from the 30's to the 50's were all in 'hardback' form (actually a sort of cardboard cover). The late 60's versions also had a stiff cover, although the spines didn't hold up very well. The later books from the 70's were soft paper covers, and basically reprinted  many of the previous decade's offerings. Hard or soft cover, the Big Little Books offered a lot of reading enjoyment for the price of a couple of comics. And they were easier to fit in a backpack or suitcase or camp bag, and less likely than a comic to end up crinkled to unreadability. Now here's a few to jog your memories. Which ones did you have?

Chew the Fat: Company-Jumping Characters!

Redartz:  Every comic company has its iconic, trademark characters. What would Marvel be without the ever-amazing Spider-man? Or DC without Batman?  Archie Comics have, well, Archie. Disney and the ducks go hand-in-wing. You get the idea; many characters are intimately identified with their parent company, and many of those companies go to great lengths to keep those characters close.

However, over the years, numerous characters have started their print careers under one company, only to make a switch to a competing company later on. Whether due to a copyright battle, a corporate buyout, or changes in licensing, many notable characters have seen publication under more than one banner. This makes it challenging for the collector, and probably a headache for Bob Overstreet; but that's the comic biz. Let's look at some of these 'company jumpers'...


Captain Marvel

 


















"The Big Red Cheese" moved from Fawcett to DC years after legal wrangling in which DC claimed the character violated their copyright on Superman. One wonders how Marvel would have liked to get their hands on the Captain; they put the name to use at any rate.


Tarzan

Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Tarzan" appeared for years under the Dell label, and then under Western's Gold Key. DC got the rights, and continued Gold Key's numbering. Marvel took over in the later 70's with a new first issue, and art by ace John Buscema.


Conan the Barbarian

 


 















 Marvel won rights to Robert E. Howard's barbarian, and presented his adventures in various formats from the 70's through the 90's. The new Millenium saw Dark Horse Comics publishing Conan, until recently Marvel regained the rights. Although a licensed character, I'll always associate Conan with Marvel...

 
Yogi Bear

 Hanna Barbera's famous picnic basket thief seems to have made the rounds of comic companies as thoroughly as he did the picnic tables. Gold Key, Charlton, Marvel, Harvey and even Archie Comics! How did DC miss out (although I could be unaware of just that eventuality: DC has access to Hanna Barbera's retinue, and have been making great use of them the last few years).


 
Jonny Quest

One lonely issue from Gold Key was all you could find of the iconic boy adventurer for many years, until in 1986 Comico began it's fine run. In the 90's Dark Horse picked up the franchise with the "New Adventures".
 
Darth Vader

 


 















 Marvel struck gold by getting the rights to "Star Wars" putting out the first issue before the film opened. The House of Ideas kept it up for years, through the mid 80's. But Dark Horse picked up the ball  (or Death Star, if you prefer) and ran with it beginning in the 90's. Yet once again, Marvel recently re-acquired the rights and is putting out numerous series once again.


Blue Beetle

 













 Blue Beetle debuted at Charlton in the 60's, by the great Steve Ditko. In the 70's Modern Comics reprinted some of  his Charlton appearances. Not long afterwards, DC bought out Charlton's stable of heroes (as they had with the Quality characters), and made the Beetle a part of the great Justice League International series.


Popeye

 


















 The immortal Sailor Man, like Tarzan, has been published for many decades under many banners. Gold Key and Charlton featured him through the 60's and 70's. In the late 80's, Harvey put out some issues (what was up with Harvey back then, anyway- not just Casper and Richie Rich anymore). Most recently IDW has been putting out some fine stories...

There you have a few examples of 'wanderers' among the various comics publishers. No doubt you can come up with more. And of these pictured here, who do you feel did the 'best job' with a given character? Which characters do you identify with which publishers? Go ahead and 'chew the fat'...

The Quarter Bin: The $1 Challenge of Missing Covers!

Martinex1: Here at Back In The Bronze Age, we like to dive into the Quarter Bin at the local comic shop.   And often when we explore there, we find coverless reader copies of classic Bronze Age material interspersed with the graveyard of over-ordered inventory.   Now I know that the serious collector intent to find mint copies may pass over these rough copies, but I love to grab the oddities that cannot be found in the collected trades or the gems that just never made it onto my target list. 


So today, I am sharing not covers but rather splash pages for our $1 Challenge.   Imagine these are coverless books in a bin - four for a dollar.   (Or for you serious aficionados who wouldn't touch a mangled copy - imagine that you can only see the first page).   I figure there are enough BITBAs out there that cut up the covers or destroyed them from excessive reading that this might ring a bell.


And like the random comics you sometimes run across in the piles, we have a wide selection of humor, horror, and heroes.  We have Marvel, DC, Archie, Atlas-Seaboard, and Charlton.   We have Ditko, Buscema, Kirby and more. From Aquaman to the Brute, from Red Sonja to the Grim Ghost, from Red Wolf to Popeye - we've got it all!


So see if you can identify these copies with limited info.  Pick your top four and feed us the score. Happy hunting and as always... cheers!