Eye Lie Popeye and all the images you see in this review are owned by Massive Publishing and King Features
Written and drawn by Marcus Williams
Popeye shares that fate of many of his early animation peers in that they have a brand and legacy that enough people seem to care about, and yet no one seems to know what to do with him. Popeye is one of my favorite cartoon characters and the Robert Altman movie is an absolute classic, but it’s never been much more than a nostalgia property in my lifetime. The movie was over forty years ago, and the best we’ve gotten since then is the NES game, which was still well before my time. As far as I’m concerned, the only relevant thing in the Popeye canon since the turn of the millennium was that excellent episode of Death Battle where he kicked Saitama’s butt, and it seems to have tapped into something about the character given that this comic is very much inspired by the same ridiculously over the top Shonen anime that One Punch Man is a part of. Still, that worked as a one-off video for a couple of guys on YouTube. Is there enough juice in that lemon, or spinach in that can, to carry a series like this? Let’s find out!!
Our story begins with a plucky reporter named Judy P’Tooty who is determined to find out just how the legendary sailor Popeye lost his eye. I guess this proves what a fair-weather fan of Popeye I am, as I always thought he was just squinting, but apparently he’s missing an eye and everyone and their mother is ready to tell Judy how it happened. As a framing device for a first issue, this works well enough as we hear fantastical stories from Olive Oyl, Bluto, and Wimpy that perhaps are light on truth but reveal pertinent details about the cast. No one is going outside their established characters as Olive carries a torch for Popeye, Bluto is a mean-spirited blowhard, and Wimpy is fastidious about his hamburgers, but given how unlikely it is for young readers to know the finer details of these characters, it’s important to get everyone up to speed.
The Reviewers Unite 