The Fabuleous Fifties

Sappo, Not The Sailor Man

Tuesday Comic Strip Day.

This is a placeholder. I came across a nice set of Popeye Sundays from 1939. Unsigned, they probably are by Doc Winner, who replaced the recntly deceased Elsie Segar for a shot time before the new 'offcial' team was installed. I have never scanned any Segar pages because they are all very nicely reprinted in several editions. But these few, made so shortly after Segar's death are less often seen. And as far as the Popeye pages go, probably justly so. Under Doc Winner, Popeye's adventures were quite dull and homely. I don't particulary lie the almost twenty year run that follwed that, but what I have seen fom those strips is better than the Winner ones. But I do have a soft spot for Sappo, who started out life as Popeye's precursor and remained in the background of the strip when the spinach eating sailorman arrived. After a while, Sappo was given his own strip as a topper to the Popeye Sunday page and that was pretty impressive as well.

Under Winner, Sappo kept his topper spot and for a while he had an interesting soryline about Sappo visiting Reversia, a country where everything is done the other way around. The gags are easy, but the concept is thrilling. Unfortunately, I have not yet finished scanning the strips, but eventually they will end up here with this lonely one I did manage to get ready. The first is an earlier one - by Segar.