Popeye Characters

When we think of comic heroes, we think of people who can fly, who have supernatural powers or people who come from another world, but we hardly ever think of sailors who eat spinach and therefore become super powerful. And it is right there where the originality of Popeye lies, because this little man, who has been popular for ages and for lots of generations, is just like any of us and his powers and strength comes simply from that green vegetable that we can find in any supermarket.

The original story from where Popeye was born was actually named Thimble Theater and it was created in the late 20’s. Quickly Popeye became the most popular character in the comic strip. In the 70’s the comic strip was finally renamed Popeye, acknowledging the character’s high popularity.

Popeye has been portrayed as the opposition to all those physical features that were typical of a superhero: he is old, bald, and short and uses only one eye, plus the fact that he has quite a bad temper sometimes. He also has a hoarse voice that may be the consequence of his smoking pipe habit that has also become one of the character’s trademarks. However he is loyal and devoted to his romantic love, Olive Oyl (who is also the walking opposition of any regular heroine since she is supper skinny and more hilarious than sexy) and defends her every time his rival Brutus tries to take her away from him. To do so he only needs one thing: spinach and in this sense, whenever he eats one can of spinach, he acquires a superhuman power that allows him to stand against that giant enemy of his. It is believed that the increment in the spinach sales was so important after the popularity of this comic strip and the animated cartoon for TV that spinach growers all over America were profoundly grateful to the character of Popeye and even erected statues in his honor.

Popeye has an artistic style which can be considered as really typical of the historical moment in which it was born: clothes, language, furniture and even the implicit message related to the benefits of eating healthy to be strong and to develop muscles are all clearly referring to a different society than the actual one. Popeye and all the rest of the characters, their stories and adventures have been portrayed in many ways among which we must say TV, radio, films, and even video games, making the comic story one of the most popular in America (remember that Popeye could at a time compete with the enormously popular Disney’s Mickey Mouse), setting some implicit moral values for a society that happily took them.