Popeye: The Classic Newspaper Comics by Bobby London Volume 1 (1986-1989) Hardcover – 8 April 2014

Bobby London was born in 1950. His teens were in the Counter Culture '60s, his early adult years in the New Age '70s. And then came the Reagan Years...The disconnect that the cartoonist felt oozes through this book, the first of two volumes that collects Bobby London's entire run (including the strips that were never printed because King Features rejected them, and fired London himself).London's attitude to the decade in which he found himself is encapsulated in the 7-7-1986 daily, where a saleswoman tells Olive, "And here are the scents for the Eighties: Unrequited Love, Neurotic Obsession, Unnatural Desire, Bizarre Relationship, Midnight Celibacy..."To which Popeye can only respond, "They stinks!"London began his run slowly, with a series of daily gags. The earliest strips, from 2-24-1986 through 4-26-1986 weren't even signed. But the first signed strip appeared on 4-28-1986 -- the 'Ugly American' gag on Page 28 -- and soon after that London was ready with the long sagas, extending over weeks, even months, that Segar had made famous.The first flexing of the artistic muscles came with a jaunt into the Jeep's home dimension, after Olive took up with a younger boyfriend, Nerdley Von Wurlitzer III, rock critic for 'SPIT' magazine.But soon after that London is ready with the epic tale of the Sea Hag's attempt at becoming a real estate developer. The story is ratcheted up beautifully, with London sprinkling clues to the upcoming saga through the daily gags.On 2-26-1987 [Page 115] the city council of Sweethaven votes on whether or not "to turn their quiet little fishing village into a noisy, money-making tourist trap."On 6-11-1987 [Page 145] developers try to "tear down the old waterfront to make room for a new shopping mall."On 6-15-1987 [Page 146] Popeye has a second run-in with the city council.And the Sea Hag reveals herself on 6-29-1987 [Page 150] as the saga proper begins. This story was apparently popular enough to be collected into a book in 1988, 'Mondo Popeye'. London drew a strip to introduce the collection -- calling it 'Sea Hag City' -- that never appeared in any paper. (It's been reproduced in Andrew Farago's introduction, on Page 9 of this volume.)I don't want to give away any spoilers but Bobby London also cleverly hid a couple of clues to the ultimate solution by which Popeye beats the Sea Hag's machinations. You can find them in the daily gag strips of 3-31-1987 [Page 124] and 4-9-1987 [Page 127].The ending reflects London's feelings. "Ya'd think the folks o'this town would be glad I got rid o'the Sea Hag, Castor," says Popeye, "Instead, they is mad at me!" And there is a bittersweet tinge to the conclusion of the story on 10-2-1987 [Page 177].The success of the long storyline did however open the doors to more such efforts. And there is more traditional, meaning richly comic, fare in 'Relish of the Gods', that runs from 10-27-1987 through 2-27-1988. And right on its heels, starting 2-29-1988 is the intergalactic tale of 'Popeye's Main Event'. And then 'The Days and Nights of Olive Oyl', followed by 'The Smog'.There are so many references to events in the 1980s that IDW-LoAC really should have included some notes (as they did for Berkeley Breathed's 'Bloom County' collection).And I don't just mean references to the 1980s. London was a student of the comic strip, a genuinely American art form, and his version of 'Popeye' pays homage to the masters of the past. Farago's introduction notes that the June 10, 1986 daily is "right out of Cliff Sterret's 'Polly and Her Pals'." And is that 'runaway elephant' gag on 11-27-1986 a tribute to Jack Kent's 'King Aroo'? (The dreadful pun is pure Kent!)There is a timeless quality to E. C. Segar that makes his 'Popeye' my personal favorite where London's strip is slightly harder to relate to because it is so drenched in the 1980s.So, is London as good as Segar? Well, no.Is London a worthy successor -- at several decades' remove -- to the master? Definitely!

I was first exposed to Bobby London’s work at a very young age. I was six or seven years old and I was on vacation in Ohio with my family and we had stopped at a local Meijer store to do some shopping, I distinctly remember going through the toy section and stopping dead in my tracks upon spotting two Popeye jigsaw puzzles. One was of a Norman Rockwell type dinner scene depicting Popeye and the gang sitting down to a turkey dinner, and the other one was a scene taking place in the Ocean where the gang was floating around and Popeye was being spat out of the mouth a giant green sea monster. The seascape puzzle was drawn by Bobby London. I was overjoyed at finding the puzzles, and my folks bought them for me and I worked them repeatedly. Shortly after joining the Popeye fan club I noticed in one of the old “Swap Shop” ad’s that someone had a copy of a book called “Mondo Popeye’” by Bobby London for sale. I knew that name from my puzzle, but the book intrigued me. I mailed away my hard earned allowance and I soon received a Popeye book unlike any I’d read before. The book itself, having been published in the 80’s borrows it’s small rectangular design from the Garfield paperbacks of the era and collected some of London’s earliest days on the strip. I read it cover to cover probably a dozen times over the course of my childhood and early teens. Bobby London, who took over for Bud Sagendorf in 1986, may have seemed like an unusual choice at the time, but he really was a perfect fit for bringing Popeye into the new world of the 1980’s. Having been previously known for drawing Dirty Duck for Playboy and the National Lampoon and having been a member of the notorious underground cartoonist collective known as the Air Pirates, Bobby had drawn both the ire and the attention of Walt Disney and eventually worked in their licensing department for a time. London, who always claimed a great respect for Segar really seemed to keep his spirit alive when he began the strip, starting off in the gag-a-day style of Sagendorf, but eventually moving into the sort of epic length sagas that Segar was known for. Although, all good things must come to an end. In 1992, as I’m sure many of you are aware, London’s long simmering creative disagreements with King Features came to a head and London was fired after doing a storyline that could have been conceived as having been about abortion. After his unceremonious termination, Mr. London’s Popeye work vanished into near obscurity. After Mondo Popeye went out of print the only way one could find his work was in such anthology magazines as Comics Revue Annual and Classic Comics and Crosswords and a small series of paperback books by a company in England called Ravette Books. After having been a fan of London’s work for so long, and having read everything I could possibly get my hands on, I began to feel as though I’d never get to read the entire body of work. Enter IDW. Imagine my surprise this past January when I saw the listing for this book on Amazon.com! I couldn’t believe my luck! I quickly placed a pre-order and waited obsessively by my mailbox for the next three months. When it finally arrived, I was far from disappointed! The fine folks at IDW, in association with The Library of American Comics have put out a hardback tome that any Popeye fan would be proud to have on their bookshelf. The book covers London’s first three years on the job and serves as a fantastic introduction to his work. It’s very interesting to see how he quickly changed from emulating Sagendorf’s art style in the first few months to adopting his own unique twist on the characters, in much the same way that Sagendorf did with Bela Zaboly when he took over the daily strips in 1959. The book truly shows off what Mr. London did best, slightly modernizing all the characters, save Popeye, while still managing to keep a familiar feel about them. While some strips feel a tad dated, with references to such 80’s touchstones as the Smurfs and Transformers, the strips are still uproariously funny and hold up very well. The gem of this particular volume is a story called “Sea Hag City”, an epic that spanned from June 1987 until October of that year, and it entails the evil Sea Hag setting out not to destroy Popeye, but to become an evil, greedy, power hungry real estate developer who buys up nearly every available property in Sweethaven while Popeye, Castor, Wimpy and the Jeep race against the clock to set things right. Such wonderful stories really put me in mind of the great Segar epics, like Plunder Island and the Eighth Sea, though with more emphasis here on humor rather than on action. There’s plenty in this collection for everyone to love, whether it’s the gag-a-day jokes for the casual fan or the epic-length adventures for the Superfans, anyone who picks up this book will scarcely be able to put it down! Happy reading!Ryan

IDW Publishing puts out the very BEST comic collections in the world. Each book they do is a thing of beauty and a great addition to any library.Bobby London was one of the most important "underground comix" stars during the decade long heyday of that media. His work joined the work of other stars such as Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton. Underground comix gave a voice to the counter culture of the day, and crossed as many boundaries and stepped on as many old school toes as possible. Even the FBI was upset what with all this "freedom of expression" that was going on in the world of underground comics.London became well known over time due to his "Dirty Duck" strips which first appeared in the lost, lamented National Lampoon magazine and then, in Playboy magazine.When London was handed the Popeye strip, some people must have raised their eyebrows just a bit. But he did what many expected him to do (thank the Lord), which was delivery an incredibly funny and faithful (yet updated) version of the Popeye universe while pushing the envelope as much as he thought he could get away with.Eventually, London would take one step too far, and he saw himself canned for something that, while opinionated in nature, certainly was within the jurisdiction of any free thinking cartoonist.But with this collection, we can once again delight in what London accomplished: a very fresh and funny take on a beloved world of zany and outrageous cartooning, suitable for all audiences, and a great, wonderful handful of hilarity. Get it.

These comics felt like they were trying to fit Popeye in today's world. They weren't funny or like the classic comics.

When I heard Bobby London was to write and draw the daily Popeye comic strip, I searched out weekly tabloids that reprinted the latest comic strips, because neither newspaper where I lived carried it. London's deceptively casual style shows his clear artistic design abilities... it's easier to get a good looking strip if the artist can fill backgrounds with gobs of detail like hyper realistic trees, electronic equipment, or other stuff that hides imbalances in panels. But London kept Sweetwater and other backgrounds with enough simplicity to highlight his animated characters. His writing took this familiar cast into great gags and clear story arcs. The first volume shows his daily gag start with the strip evolve into those continuing stories; the second volume takes those stories into the political humor which upset the syndicate enough to drop the strip in mid story. It prints the entire story, allowing us to see where London was taking the characters to entertain and enlighten us.