The Fabuleous Fifties

 Toot-toot!

Tuesday Comic Strip Day.

Tallking about Popeye (as I was yesterday), here are some of Bud Sagendorf's earliest Popeye Sundays. Sagendorf started out as Segar's apprentice and assistant. When he didn't get to take over the strip after Segar died, he went on to do the comic book (very succesfully, I may add), which was repacked a couple of years ago by Craig Yoe (very succesfull I may add) and lead to a new Popeye comic book written (very succesfully, I may add) by Roger Langridge and a Sagendorf reprint series (very... well, you know by now).

In 1960 Sagendorf finally took over the newspaper strip and made it into an even bigger succes than it already was. Of course, the television series may have helped - but Sagendorf's funny stories and handling of the characters didn't hurt. So succesful was he, that his early years almost seem forgotten. Like the early years of B.C. and Beetle Bailey and The Wizard if Id and Hi and Lois, Popeye became such a fixture in the newspapers that the older stuff was sort of forgotten until it looked, wel... older.

But in Sagendorf's case, that was not a bad thing. Of course I'd say it wasn't in any of the strips mentioned, but young fans may argue that the older Beetle doesn't look like the new one and that the first year or so of B.C. was a bit unsure. But in Sagendorf's case, his style was fully set when he took over the newspaper strip, so the only thing that is different about them is the fact that newpaper strips were bigger than and had more room for witty gags and funny drawings. So, like, I'd say they are better.

Here are some Sunday cliplets for you to make up your own mind. If and when I have more color samples I'll share them. The crude scans (as the comics reporter calls them are the result of the fact that these were taken from a microfiche source. I have just recieved a huge load of color Sundays which I will upload as soon as I have scanned them.