Clover Press and Yoe! Books have teamed up for Popeye Variations, a 10″ x 10″ hardcover book featuring over 75 underground and mainstream artists and cartoonists now available to back on Kickstarter. The project is already funded but has just hours to go before you’ll no longer get to back it.
Popeye has been an inspiration for generations, including the creators of this project. See what I mean below!
“I feel like a lot of people didn’t really understand what I do until I got to draw Popeye. No one in my life may know what an Eisner nomination, Junior Library Guild Selection, or Freeman Award are… but Popeye was the theme of my parents’ wedding. My grandma quilted him onto my baby blanket. He was the mascot of my wife’s favorite South Korean snacks. Everyone knows that old one-eyed sailor and everyone has a variation they love the best.”
—Ryan Estrada
“I’ve loved Popeye since I was kid, growing up with Bud Sagendorf’s comic books, and of course the cartoons on TV. When I finally saw Segar’s original comic strips, I was really blown away. Contributing to POPEYE’S CARTOON CLUB and doing the POPEYE comic book variant cover were absolute labors of love. For the former I took the opportunity to work EVERYONE into the strip (just so I could draw them), and for the latter I wanted to create a really iconic cast image (and hopefully I succeeded)!”
—Jim Engel
“Besides being an enormous artistic influence on me, I believe E.C. Segar’s Popeye has become timeless due to his triumphant spirit of always trying to do the right thing and fighting for what he loves with or without a magic hen or spinach. Popeye is and will always be punk rock.”
—Chogrin Muñoz
“EC Segar, Popeye’s Creator, loved to showcase art by fans—usually kids—in the Sunday comics. Every fan identifies with a different aspect of Popeye, whether it’s his integrity of character, his dedication to helping the needy, or his penchant for punching his way out of a problem. This is why seeing the bits and pieces of Popeye’s world that different artists gravitate toward always delights me—and would surely delight Segar if he were here to see these wonderful artworks!”
—Tea Fougner, Editorial Director, King Features
Check out the preview below.
Popeye, the iconic, spinach-eating sailorman, is owned by King Features, a unit of Hearst and home to some of the world’s most popular entertainment characters. In Popeye’s early days, E.C. Segar often shared artwork drawn by fans at the end of the Thimble Theater comic strip. He called this “Popeye’s Cartoon Club,” and it gave ordinary readers a chance to share the page with Popeye.
In 2019, in honor of Popeye’s 90th birthday, King Features brought Popeye’s Cartoon Club back with a special twist, inviting cartoonists from around the world to contribute their own comic strip featuring Popeye and his friends, which was digitally published on ComicsKingdom.com.
Contributors included Kate Ashwin; Samir Barrett; Isabella Bannerman; Sandra Bell-Lundy; Olive Rae Brinker; Box Brown; Lar DeSouza; Jim Engel; Ryan Estrada; Andrew Farago; Jay P. Fosgitt; Shaenon K. Garrity; Maddi Gonzalez; Alex Hallett; John Hambrock; Micheline Hess; Bill Holbrook; Susan Camilleri Konar; John Kovaleski; Carol Lay; Bones Leopard; Steve Lieber; Kel McDonald; Randy Milholland; Lonnie Milsap; Yesenia Moises; Shan Murphy; Maritsa Patrinos; Woodrow Phoenix; Rina Piccolo; Justin Pierce; Caro Ramsay; David Reddick; Jules Rivera; John Rose and Sarah Rose; Magnolia Porter Siddell; Jim Siergey; Bob Spang; Vannotes; Marloes De Vries; Jean Wei; Bianca Xunise; Reimena Yee; Savannah Zambrano and more.
Now, Popeye Variations makes the work of these artists available for the first time in print!
Popeye Variations
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