E.C. Segar

Elzie Crisler Segar (December 8, 1894 – October 13, 1938), known by the pen name E. C. Segar, was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of Popeye, a pop culture character who first appeared in 1929 in Segar's comic strip Thimble Theatre.

Charles M. Schulz said of Segar's work: "I think Popeye was a perfect comic strip, consistent in drawing and humor".

Carl Barks described Segar as "the unbridled genius as far as I was concerned".

Segar was born on December 8, 1894, and raised in Chester, Illinois, a small town near the Mississippi River.

The son of Jewish parents Erma Irene (Crisler) and Amzi Andrews Segar, a handyman, his earliest work experiences included assisting his father in house painting and paper hanging.

Skilled at playing drums, he also provided musical accompaniment to films and vaudeville acts in the local theater, where he was eventually given the job of film projectionist at the Chester Opera House, where he also did live performances.

At age 18, he decided to become a cartoonist.

He took a correspondence course in cartooning from W. L. Evans of Cleveland, Ohio.

He said that after work he "lit up the oil lamps about midnight and worked on the course until 3 a.m."

During this time, Segar also began studying the work of cartoonists that he would later cite as influences on his work, including Rube Goldberg, George McManus and George Herriman (especially Herriman's strip Stumble Inn).

Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest it was "SEE-gar".

He commonly signed his work simply Segar or E. Segar above a drawing of a cigar.

Segar moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he met Richard F. Outcault, the creator of The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown.

Outcault encouraged him and introduced him at the Chicago Herald.

On March 12, 1916, the Herald published Segar's first comic, Charlie Chaplin's Comic Capers, which ran for a little over a year.

In 1917, Segar created Barry the Boob, about an incompetent soldier.

Segar also originated two other, short-lived comics for the Herald's Sunday magazine.

These were The Mistakes of Mr. Muddle and the Rube Goldberg-inspired And They Get By With It.

In 1918, he moved on to William Randolph Hearst's Chicago Evening American, for which he created Looping the Loop and worked as a second-string drama critic.

Looping the Loop was a comic strip that gave a whimsical take on the events in Chicago's "Loop" district.

"Looping the Loop" made jokes about such issues as silent movies, plays, and the changing seasons; it proved popular with the Herald's readers.

Segar married Myrtle Johnson that year; they had two children.

In October 1919, Segar covered that year's World Series, creating eight cartoons for the sports pages.

Evening American managing editor William Curley thought Segar could succeed in New York, so he sent him to King Features Syndicate, where Segar worked for many years.

King Features asked Segar to create a comic strip to replace Midget Movies by Ed Wheelan, who had recently resigned from the syndicate.

Segar created Thimble Theatre for the New York Journal, as the replacement for Wheelan's strip.

The Thimble Theatre strip made its debut on December 19, 1919, featuring the characters Olive Oyl, Castor Oyl and Harold Hamgravy, whose name was quickly shortened in the strip to simply "Ham Gravy".

They were the strip's leads for about a decade.

Segar also created The Five-Fifteen for King Features in 1920; it was retitled Sappo in 1926, although numerous newspapers had already retitled the strip 'Sappo the Commuter' by 1924.

Segar began writing long storylines or "continuities" for Thimble Theatre in 1922.

In these, the characters would have lengthy adventures in Africa and the Wild West.

In one storyline, the characters encountered a superhuman "tough guy" named Harry Hardegg, who was able to break a moving buzz saw with his head.

Comics historian Bill Blackbeard has described Harry Hardegg as a "prototype" for Popeye.

The Five-Fifteen started its run as a Monday-through-Saturday strip, concluding its initial daily run in February 1925.

In 1926, the strip, now officially retitled, was revived as a Sunday-only topper to the Thimble Theatre Sunday pages.

Initially, this strip revolved about the exploits of suburban couple John and Myrtle Sappo.

On January 17, 1929, when Castor Oyl needed a mariner to navigate his ship to Dice Island, Castor picked up a weatherbeaten sailor named Popeye in the docks.

Popeye's first line in the strip, upon being asked if he was a sailor, was "'Ja think I'm a cowboy?"

In May 1932, however, Segar introduced the eccentric scientist and inventor (and self-proclaimed "genius") O.G. Wotasnozzle into the strip as a regular.

Wotasnozzle's bizarre machines soon became the focus of the strip, with John Sappo frequently cast as his test subject and straight man.