Book Review: Readings
It's a good time for fans of the old funny pages
Reviewed by Ryan Rutherford, Fri., March 16, 2007
E.C. Segar's Popeye Vol. 1: "I Yam What I Yam!"
Fantagraphics, 200 pp., $29.95
The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy: Dailies & Sundays, Volume One
Idea & Design Works, 352 pp., $29.99
It's a good time for fans of the old funny pages. The success of The Complete Peanuts – Fantagraphics' ongoing effort to compile the entire run of Charles Schulz's life's work in 25 hardcover volumes – seems to have sparked a trend. A growing number of classic comic strips are getting similar lavish treatment. Among the more impressive of the recent releases are E.C. Segar's Popeye Vol. 1: "I Yam What I Yam" and The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy: Dailies & Sundays, Volume One. Both volumes trace the artistic development of legendary cartoonists and document the introduction and early days of their comic-strip stars.
Although Popeye is best known as a cartoon star, he actually made his first appearance on Jan. 17, 1929, in the newspaper comic pages. But the title of this collection is slightly misleading. The comic strip wasn't called Popeye. The one-eyed sailor was actually introduced as an extra in Thimble Theatre, a comic that had already been running for almost a decade. Focusing on the Oyl family, especially siblings Castor and Olive, along with Olive's boyfriend, Ham Gravy, Thimble Theatre was an anything-goes comedy/adventure that derived comedy from puns, slapstick, and a large cast of oddball characters. Popeye makes his first appearance on p.27 of this collection, when Castor Oyl's scheme to loot an island casino sends the gang down to the docks looking for someone to pilot their ship. Although it's evident that Popeye was brought in simply as a supporting character for that particular adventure, his presence changes the dynamic of the strip. He's too entertaining to fade into the background, and Segar begins to focus more attention on the character. He mines a lot of comedy from his rough demeanor and from the "insulks" directed at him about his face. But when the adventure ends and Castor returns home rich, Popeye collects a million bucks and exits, telling them, "If you ever want old Popeye, you'll find him down at the docks shootin' craps – lemme know when you needs a fren." Another month passes before they go looking for Popeye, but once he's back, he becomes firmly established as the star.
The Popeye of the comic strip is a much more complex character than the cartoon star. There's no mention of spinach or Bluto, and his romance with Olive borders on dysfunctional. Segar's Popeye is like a character out of American folklore. Quick with his fists, he's a rough, tough, dice-shooting survivor. He punches out crooks and swindlers, friends and foes. But he has an optimistic, generous spirit and a kind heart. Fantagraphics' six-volume Popeye collection will document all of Segar's work with the character, up until the creator's untimely death at 43. Hopefully these oversized volumes will generate a renewed interest and wider recognition of his work.
IDW Publishing begins a more ambitious project with The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy. If successful, it will collect the full five decades that Gould spent working on the comic strip. The first volume of Dick Tracy covers the years 1931-1933, and it might come as a surprise to readers who are only familiar with the slow, tedious modern version of the comic. As the funny pages have shrunk, adventure strips probably suffered the most. With less space to build story and illustrate action, the pacing has been thrown off, and the surviving action strips became more like soap operas. That's not the case in this volume of Dick Tracy. While still far from its peak years, the strip is already an entertaining, pulpy mix of action, drama, and a touch of romance. It begins quickly with Tracy's origin: After gangsters kidnap his girlfriend, Tess Trueheart, and murder her father on the night they get engaged, Tracy swears to avenge the killing and rescue Tess. Laughably, the chief of police soon invites Tracy to join the force as a plainclothes detective. But there's no time to dwell on the chief's recruiting practices because Dick Tracy is quickly on the murderers' trail.
The weird villains, such as Pruneface and Flattop, don't appear for a few volumes. In this first book, Tracy takes on assorted gangsters, gun molls, extortionists, kidnapers, and oddly enough, a grizzly bear. Although the comic strip has its ridiculous moments and a few of the plots are duds, at its best it crackles like a Thirties gangster picture. Gould's comic strip is thought to have contributed to the Chicago gang wars of the late Twenties and early Thirties. The violence on display is realistic and surprising by comic-strip standards. This early version of Dick Tracy would never last in a modern forum, which is unfortunate because the brutal battles between cops and gangsters is, at the very least, highly entertaining.
