Popeye Comics Get Cool

Sometimes we don’t realize something is cool until months or years go by and then we catch up with it. There’s something going on right now that’s pretty darn cool and I want to call your attention to – because I wouldn’t want you to pay any inflated ebay “collectors” prices later on.

Craig Yoe and Clizia Gussoni have been doing two wonderful Popeye comic book series for IDW Publishing. One is a mini-series of 12 original issues. The other is a series reprinting Bud Sagendorf’s great 1940s-50s comic book run. Sagendorf was the long-time assistant to the creator of Popeye, Elzie Segar, and his comics are just as classic.

Yoe tells us:

“We are finishing up the acclaimed Popeye mini-series, and we’ll go out with a goggley-eyed bang when Popeye meets Barney Google. One of the most popular aspects has been the variant covers by celeb artists. So we are now going to continue that aspect in our reprints of the hilarious Bud Sagendorf’s Popeye classic Comics.

We are ecstatic that the first Popeye Classic variant cover will be by the justly famed New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast. We’re looking for other awesome artists who want to do a variant cover and welcome people from the animation community–Matt Groening, Craig McCracken, Ralph Bakshi, Tim Burton, Genndy Tartakovsky–are you listening? Lesser luminaries are welcome to submit ideas, too–if they’re good we’ll use them!”

I can’t speak highly enough about these comic books. They are produced with a proper amount of respect for Segar/Sagendorf’s original canon, gently updated to play perfectly as contemporary adventures. A perfect package – topped off with a bonus: the guest cover artists. Below is a gallery of covers by some of those guest artists (click thumbnail to enlarge image) – its a blast to see Popeye interpreted by a who’s-who of respected artisans.

Top Row (left to right): The variant cover to Popeye Classic #8 by Roz Chast; Cover by Bruce Ozella and variant by Jules Feiffer for Popeye #1; Variant for Popeye #2 by Tony Millionaire.

Middle Row (left to right): Cover by Tom Neely and variant by Dean Yeagle for Popeye #3; Variant by Seymour Chwast for Popeye #4; Variant by Shawn Dickinson for Popeye #8.

Bottom Row (left to right): Variant by Al Jaffee for Popeye #9 (not in stores yet); Variant by Craig Yoe for Popeye #10 (not in stores yet); Variant by Mitch O’Connell for Popeye #11 (not in stores yet); Cover by Roger Langridge for the final issue with Barney Google cross-over, Popeye #12 (not in stores yet).

Buy these books! Highly recommended!