Popeye the Sailorpedia
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Who's who

The cast of Thimble Theatre as drawn by Bud Sagendorf

Thimble Theatre was created by King Features Syndicate comic writer/artist E.C. Segar, and was his third published strip. The strip first appeared in the New York Journal, a newspaper operated by King Features owner William Randolph Hearst, on December 19, 1919 before later expanding into more papers. In its early days, Thimble Theatre featured characters acting out various stories and film parodies (hence the strip's name). Following a series of revamps across its first decade, the strip introduced (and rapidly evolved into a starring vehicle for) Popeye, after whom the strip was eventually renamed. Nonetheless, the nine years of Thimble Theatre strips preceding the sailor's introduction share characters, settings and elements of narrative continuity with the comic's Popeye-centric years, thus qualifying as part of the same comic.

Daily strips[]

Stories created by Segar[]

1919

Thimble Theatre made its debut on Friday, December 19, 1919. It started out as a gag-a-day strip parodying theatrical films, where every installment started with a cast list, indicating which characters Olive Oyl and Ham Gravy were playing.

1920

The cast list format would be dropped after January 2, 1920 (just 13 strips total) but the gag-a-day format continued. Gradually, it was established that Olive and Ham were longtime, suffering girlfriend-and-boyfriend, in a comically dysfunctional sort of way. Olive's brother Castor Oyl made his debut on January 14, but in this first year he only showed up occasionally. Olive and Castor's parents also made their debut as semi-regular background characters. As early as March of 1920, Segar wrote and drew his first multi-day story.

  • 03/11/1920 - 3/27/1920 (From an island to Mexico)
On March 11, we see Olive, Ham, and Castor on a tropical island talking about how they have just been shipwrecked. The next several days show them still on the island, then on March 16, we see Ham talking about how they managed to get off the island, but are now in Mexico. The next several strips shows what the trio are up to in Mexico. Not much of a story, and after this, the strip goes back to being gag-a-day for the rest of the year.
1921

The gag-a-day format would continue through most of this year, with Castor Oyl remaining a minor player (culminating in a near-complete disappearance early in the year, during which his role was occupied by a series of generic tertiaries with similar character traits). Sometimes, a running gag would last a few days in a row, but always for less than a week, with the following exception:

  • 01/31/1921 - 02/05/1921 (Olive Oyl's pet pig, Venus)
The only time in this period when a running gag managed to last a full week of dailies, from Monday to Saturday.
  • 09/20/1921 - 10/29/1921 (Shipwrecked on an island)
Much like the shipwreck story of the previous year, this one begins with the shipwreck having already happened. Unlike in that previous story, it starts with Olive and Ham on a makeshift raft as they reach a tropical island. The final few instalments show why and how Olive and Ham are able to get off the island and return home, making for a tighter, more cohesive story than the previous year's.
  • 11/14/1921 - 12/12/1921 (Detective Ham Gravy)
Ham is employed as a detective and, wielding an exaggeratedly large pipe, ineptly attempts to resolve a series of crimes.
1922

For the first seven months of 1922, the strip was strictly gag-a-day. One noticeable change during this period was that Castor Oyl started to become more prominent, showing up nearly every week.

  • 07/31/1922 - 10/10/1922 "Great Gobs of Gold"
  • 10/11/1922 - 10/25/1922 (Ham Gravy, moving picture tycoon)
Ham attempts to direct a film.
  • 11/06/1922 - 11/17/1922 (The cave man)
To affirm his "red-blooded manhood" to Olive (and thus encourage her to accept his marriage proposal), Ham attempts to weather a month in the wilderness with no food, matches or clothing. After reaching the limits of his patience, he purloins Castor Oyl's (overly diminutive) clothing before eventually forsaking his mission.
  • 11/22/1922 - 12/11/1922 (Fake income tax collector)
  • 12/22/1922 - 01/10/1923 (Trip to Palm Springs)

In the "Great Gobs of Gold" storyline, Ham, Olive and Castor travel to Africa and make a fortune finding gold. When they get home, it is promptly taken from them by an "income tax collector". After a couple of unrelated storylines (and a period of gag-a-day strips), it finally dawns on them that income tax does not usually take one's entire fortune like that, and realize the collector was a fraud. They track down the crook and get their money back. They then take a vacation to Palm Springs. According to comics strip historian Bill Blackbeard, this type of "[l]ong, complex, suspenseful comic adventure stories" was "equalled at the time for length and complexity only by goings-on in Sidney Smith's daily Gumps strip." (The Gumps was a newspaper comics strip created by Smith that ran from 1917-1959. Blackbeard is saying that The Gumps and Thimble Theatre were the only two newspaper strips of the very early 1920s that used the daily format to tell long, complex, suspenseful narratives, making them pioneers of the type of adventure strips that became popular for the next several decades.)

1923
  • 01/11/1923 - 2/21/1923 (Broke in Mexico)
Ham, Olive and Castor, their confidence inflated by the re-acquisition of their fortunes, expend thousands on shares in an ostensibly high-value oil well in Doodlesville, Mexico. Upon arriving at the well, situated near a remote village, the trio discover the well to be exaggeratedly miniscule and thus virtually worthless. Now bankrupt and bereft of food and water, Ham and Olive trade the well for a loaf of bread and subsequently comb a nearby village for cash and nourishment. During their search, Olive is abducted by bandits, obliging Ham and Castor to rescue her. Despite the pair's (inept) efforts, however, Olive is ultimately released by the (now-despairing) bandits on the grounds of her abhorrent singing, with Ham subsequently attempting (and once again failing) to confront and apprehend the lead bandit. Forced to walk home due to their lack of funds, the trio are left penniless and wielding thousands in fake oil shares, which Castor proceeds to sell to a local rag man for 68 cents.
  • 04/10/1923 - 4/22/1923 (Hamgravy the ballplayer)
Ham Gravy joins a baseball team.
  • 06/26/1923 - 08/08/1923 (Lizzie Lucre)
After accidentally saving the relatively unattractive yet fabulously wealthy heiress Lizzie Lucre from drowning while fishing, Castor Oyl gains access to a fortune, a position jeopardized by Ham's competitive gold-digging. Eventually, Ham's efforts prove successful, leaving Castor distraught over his (financial) loss. Following several unsuccessful attempts at suicide, Castor alerts Olive to Ham's disloyalty. Enraged, Olive apprehends Ham, leading her to, in recognition of her own physical prowess, pursue a career as a fighter.
  • 09/11/1923 - 12/07/1923 (Blizzard the fighting bird)
Castor receives Blizzard, an ostensibly scrawny yet immensely powerful fighting cockerel, in a package from his uncle, and opts to pit Blizzard against a range of successively more monstrous opponents (including an ostrich backed by Ham Gravy) for financial gain.
  • 12/11/1923 - 03/21/1924 (The Pool of Beauty)
Ham Gravy, Olive and Castor travel to the South Seas in pursuit of the mythical Pool of Beauty, alleged to bestow platonic physical attractiveness upon anyone bathing in its waters. After traversing a series of islands, the search proves to be fruitless, save for Ham locating (and bringing back) a highly aggressive "south seas giant woodpecker", which he believes to be the sole bird with the fighting prowess to defeat Blizzard. Upon returning home, however, Castor discovers Blizzard, having been left in the care of a local farmer, to have been overindulged, thus rendering him overweight and unable to fight effectively; following a series of unsuccessful training regimes, Castor places Blizzard into a steam bath as a final resort, leaving Blizzard exaggeratedly slim and frail. Nonetheless, Blizzard's weakened state correspondingly increases his appetite, which proves an asset on the occasion of the match, in which Blizzard simply devours Ham's woodpecker whole, securing him another victory (and the romantic interest of Farmer Jones' speckled hen, a match sparking Castor's disapproval).
1924
  • 03/22/1924 - 04/16/1924 (The parrot and the gollywater)
Ham acquires a bottle of "gollywater", a concoction allegedly rendering its drinker 'as mean and strong as seven devils', from a Native American salesman and administers it to a parrot in an attempt to thwart Blizzard's winning streak. Following a series of increasingly foreboding omens (including the prophecy of a fortune-teller), Blizzard is ultimately overcome by the parrot. Ultimately refusing to slaughter Blizzard, Castor offers to exchange him for the victor, although Ham's continued possession of the gollywater (and resultant ability to physically enhance any bird he desires) rapidly exposes the futility of Castor's acquisition.
  • 04/17/1924 - 07/30/1924 (The trip to British Guiana)
After a crusty sailor informs Ham of the lucrativeness of the diamond trade within British Guiana (now Guyana), he, Olive and Castor travel to Mexico to, on Castor's suggestion, utilize Blizzard's cockfighting prowess to fund the resultant diamond-seeking expedition. Adamant on publicly asserting his credibility as a cockfighting trainer, Castor dons a costume illusively "displaying" his ability to withstand impalement by a sword, attracting the admiration of the burly sword-swallower Pedro Tamall, who subsequently bets $2000 on the victory of his own rooster, the monstrous "Hugo". While Blizzard proves a relatively effective match for Hugo (despite his significantly smaller size) during the eventual match, the wavering direction of the conflict sparks a fistfight between Castor and Pedro, which, following attempted intervention by Olive and Ham, compels the entirety of the audience to break into a large-scale brawl. Fleeing from the skirmish, Blizzard and Hugo continue their battle outside the ring, culminating in Blizzard's victory; however, Pedro, while initially paying Castor for the match's outcome, immediately shifts tact and holds Castor at gunpoint to return the cash, reducing Blizzard's victory (and the trio's excursion to Mexico overall) to a pyrrhic one. Following a series of setbacks (in which Blizzard is nearly consumed whole by an alligator), Ham, Olive and Castor eventually reach British Guiana via makeshift means and Castor accidentally runs across a vast trove of diamonds, enabling the trio to return home as millionaires.
  • 07/31/1924 - 10/11/1924 (Castor's marriage to Lizzie Sally Goozenwoozit)
Now a millionaire, Castor begins to write to "Lizzie", a woman who, despite her anonymity, he increasingly falls for. Enthused by his projections, Castor successfully proposes to her remotely. Upon first encountering Lizzie in person, however, Castor discovers her to be unattractive and wielding a slew of prosthetic limbs, a wig and numerous children acquired from her three previous marriages. Horrified by the discrepancy between his projections and reality, Castor attempts to escape the marriage, yet proves unsuccessful until Lizzie's third supposedly-dead husband, Jim Jones, turns up alive. Castor encourages the pair to remarry and thus annul his own marriage, which, while initially a boon to him, proves deleterious when Castor's bank reveals Lizzie to have stolen his entire fortune by withdrawing it all from and her and Castor's joint bank account before running off with Jim Jones. Subsequently, Ham and Olive likewise lose their respective fortunes in rapid succession: Ham is bankrupted by shortsighted investment in the navy bean industry, while the owner of Olive's bank abruptly breaks into its vaults and steals the entirety of his clients' wealth, leaving her penniless.
  • 10/20/1924 - 11/19/1924 (Hamgravy's hunger strike)
Frustrated by Olive repeatedly rejecting his marriage proposals, Ham stages a hunger strike, which he vows to break solely on the condition of her acceptance. Olive, continuing to view Ham as an "awful load of static" and thus an unideal hypothetical partner, tentatively refrains from accepting, while Ham (albeit inconsistently) maintains the strike to the point of starvation before eventually admitting defeat.
  • 11/24/1924 - 01/09/1925 (Trip to Shiver Creek, Alaska)
Ham, Olive and Castor visit Alaska; a series of gags ensues based around the severe frigidity of its climate.
1925
  • 01/10/1925 - 03/30/1925 (Battling McGnat)
Inspired by his success with Blizzard, Castor, in collaboration with successful flyweight boxing manager Mr. Mint, is encouraged to back a gruff, diminutive and unsuccessful yet ambitious prizefighter known as "Battling McGnat" in a match against "Kid Flynn". Unable to surmount his sparring partner Asphalt, McGnat's initial displays of bravado (typically encompassing the enquiry "ever heard what Idid to Wildcat O'Connor?") are increasingly exposed as a ruse. Within the match itself, McGnat, attempting to bar the further exposure of his limited boxing skills, flees the ring (with Kid Flynn in pursuit) and attempts to subdue his opponent via a bat before being caught and relocated by Castor and Mint. Upon returning to the ring, McGnat is promptly defeated and hospitalized and Mint immediately forsakes Castor. Eventualy recovering from his injuries, McGnat continues to vouch for his abilities to an unreceptive Castor, only to encounter a wrathful Wildcat O'Connor (who reveals McGnat's prior victory against him to have stemmed from the latter exploiting O'Connor's broken arm from a prior round) and, later, to fall for Olive Oyl to no avail.
  • 03/31/1925 - 05/20/1925 (Hogan the boxing champ)
Following the failure of the McGnat venture, Castor switches to heavyweight boxing and encounters Hogan, who, despite his monolithic strength and fighting abilities, is highly unintelligent. Via a loophole in a contract, Castor becomes Hogan's backer at no financial expense, sparking a series of gags concerning Hogan's strength and unintelligence. After Hogan emerges victorious in his first match, he garners the romantic interest of a woman who subsequently agrees to marry him provided that he retire from fighting, once again depriving Castor of a fighter.
  • 05/21/1925 - 07/01/1925 (Castor Oyl's sideshow)
Frustratedly announcing the end of his fighter-managing career, Castor purchases a toothless, superannuated lion with his remaining funds and attempts to open a circus sideshow as a moneymaking venture, only to be met with a bewildered and unaccepting public. Following a series of unsuccessful attempts at establishing a second permanent act (including a dog marketed as an "animal with a dog's head" and Ham Gravy, whose oversized nose attracts publicity), Castor, while "training" his lion with a bat, accidentally kills him. Now deprived of his sole sideshow resource, Castor attempts to train a group of angle worms as performers, but is ultimately unsuccessful.
  • 07/02/1925 - 07/18/1925 (Ham Gravy the cop)
Ham becomes an (ineffectual) policeman, finally resigning when confronted with the task of arresting the gargantuan "Black Pete".
  • 07/21/1925 - 09/28/1925 (Heir to the Nasal Islands)
Ham Gravy is tailed with increasing ferocity by a clade of "spies" who eventually reveal themselves to be the royal guard of a set of islands known as "Nasalia" (not to be mistaken for the later Nazilia), of which Ham, as the 13th cousin to the reigning king, is the sole surviving eligible heir. Ham, accompanied by Olive and Castor, travels to the archipelago (occupied by a population all sharing Ham's distinctive nose) only for the king to vanish shortly after their arrival. Thrust into kingship, Ham is saddled with the country's chronic bankruptcy and discordant society, leading him to finally relent and hand the crown to an attempted assassin to prevent his imprisonment at the hands of a mob of revolutionaries.
  • 10/13/1925 - 10/27/1925 (Castor guards the Mint)
Castor is employed at the mint to "make millions". Due to his dissatisfaction with the comparatively low wages the mint pays, however, Castor repeatedly attempts to steal the money he is producing and guarding, only to eventually be discovered and fired (albeit not before attempting to steal a final "good luck penny" from the vault).
  • 10/29/1925 - 01/09/1926 (Castor's intelligence/sanity or lack thereof)
Castor buys real estate from a pair of swindlers that is actually worthless because it is underwater. Castor dumps 5 barrels worth of quinine into the water, bottles it, and is now able to make a tidy profit by selling it as medicinal water. Now that the estate is actually valuable, the two swindlers try to buy it back from Castor, but he refuses to sell no matter how high they raise the price. Finally, one of the swindlers dumps poison in the water. Castor sees this and quickly rushes to the other swindler (who is still unaware of what his partner has done) and agrees to sell the now once-again worthless estate for $10,000. Castor returns home and is hailed as a financial genius. He then promptly blows the $10,000 and his new reputation by giving all the money to another swindler calling himself "Mr. Municipal", who "sells" Castor the town's local municipal bridge. This makes Castor into a laughingstock, and a local committee even decides that anyone that dumb must be crazy and has him committed to an insane asylum. Castor manages to escape the asylum, but is now so despondent over his public humiliation he decides to end his own life. After several comically failed attempts at suicide (due to Castor's clumsiness/cowardice) he finally decides not to do it then feels good about himself for having saved a life (his own).
1926
  • 01/12/1926 - 01/27/1926 (Castor the crook)
Reinvigorated by his own "success" in saving his own life, Castor subsequently (and ineffectually) thrusts himself into several criminal ventures (including train robbery and horse-rustling) before opting to "reform" due to his ineptitude.
  • 01/28/1926 - 04/07/1926 (Olive Oyl's affair with Lambert Lucre)
There is no mentioned relation between Lambert Lucre and the by-now-forgotten Lizzie Lucre (see 1923 above). Just the same general idea of a rich boyfriend/girlfriend.
Ham increasingly begins to suspect Olive of conducting an affair with another man. Unable to extract any information from her or Castor (who nonetheless absent-mindedly confirms Ham's suspicions), Ham disguises himself as a maid to investigate Olive's loyalty and is promptly hired by the Oyls. Falling for Ham's disguise, Olive expounds her covert relationship with an unattractive-yet-wealthy man, Lambert Lucre, to her "maid", while declaring herself to be through with "that long-nosed clam" Ham. Following a series of attempts to injure Lucre covertly, Ham exposes his identity to Olive and rapidly publicizes her affair with Lucre in retaliation, informing Lucre's father and hanging fifty thousand signs exposing the relationship in a nearby wood. Olive initially continues her affair with Lucre indignantly, but discovers Lucre to wield poor eyesight, thus indicating his "love" for Olive to be based on projections of her appearance more than verifiable observations. The tension escalates when Lucre subsequently receives surgery to repair his eyesight, thus mistaking Olive, in her "homeliness", for a maid and destroying the affair. Olive, frustrated at her lack of then-conventional feminine beauty, modifies her wardrobe and dons a series of increasingly lavish flapper-esque outfits to the admiration of numerous men, including Ham. While initially assuming the "revamped" Olive to be a different woman, the size of her feet exposes her to Ham; motivated by her earlier success, Olive employs a card with an image of smaller, more idiomatically attractive feet and hangs it over her legs to attract Ham's attention; Ham proceeds to follow suit with his nose, to Castor's incredulity.

After one final period of gag-a-day strips, the remaining strips of the 1920s, beginning in late April, are long narratives.

  • 04/22/1926 - 06/05/1926 (The kidnapped, amnesiac young woman)
While hunting in the forest, Ham Gravy discovers a beautiful, amnesiac young woman escaping from a group of kidnappers implicitly holding her ransom due to her father's wealth. The kidnappers ultimately discover and bind the pair, only for Castor to be alerted to their plight and rescue them.
  • 06/07/1926 - 07/14/1926 (Love and jealousy in the air)
Since she has nowhere to go, Nana Oyl invites the amnesiac woman to stay at the Oyl family house. Ham Gravy and Castor, both attributing themselves credit for the as-yet-anonymous woman's discovery and rescue, feud over her affections, which also rouses Olive's jealousy at all the attention the young woman is getting, not least of all Olive's boyfriend.
  • 07/15/1926 - 08/30/1926 (The wedding of Castor and Cylinda Oyl)
Feeling that Olive's jealousy is making her stay at the Oyl home uncomfortable, the amnesiac young woman decides to move out, even though she still has no place to go. Castor tasks himself with sheltering her in a tent, which he guards nightly, leading the woman to fall for him. Castor proposes to her and she says yes, and soon after remembers her first name, Cylinda, although she remembers nothing else. This leads to an interruption-filled and poorly-prepared yet ultimately successful wedding.
  • 08/31/1926 - 10/27/1926 (Castor and Cylinda Oyl find her father)
To support his new wife, Castor is hired as a groundskeeper at the estate of the wealthy, misanthropic I. Caniford Lotts, who recurrently laments over his missing daughter to Castor. Expressing her loneliness over remaining at home continually, Cylinda eventually begins to accompany Castor to work, thus enabling her to coincidentally reunite with her father.
  • 10/28/1926 - 12/08/1926 (The breakup of Castor and Cylinda Oyl)
Upon reuniting with her father, Cylinda's memory returns, leading her to resume her previous persona as the self-professed "spoiled child of a wealthy man". Owing to her abruptly-acquired disgust over Castor's appearance, she rejects his advances and derides him, leading to the functional breakup of their marriage.
  • 12/09/1926 - 01/19/1927 (The reconciliation of Castor and Cylinda Oyl)
Cylinda increasingly recollects her amnesiac period, and thus regains her affections towards Castor, leading the pair (much to Lotts' chagrin) to reunite romantically. Resultantly, Cylinda quietly departs Lotts' estate to keep house alongside Castor, incensing Lotts to conduct a full-scale search with the aid of the police force. Concerned by the potential loss of his wife, Castor opts to disguise Cylinda as his ostensibly-male housemate "Mike".
1927
  • 01/20/1927 - 02/11/1927 (Castor's hunger strike)
Lotts, disdainful of Castor's working-class status, permits him and Cylinda to keep house yet refuses to support Castor financially, compelling Castor to protest via hunger strike.
  • 02/12/1927 - 07/11/1927 (Castor's nonparkable gum)
Straining to financially support himself and (as Lotts further withdraws financial support) Cylinda, Castor, aided by a grant from the capitalist lynchpin Mr. Moregain, diligently develops "nonparkable chewing gum", which rapidly evaporates upon being spat out. As the gum proves a near-instantaneous success, Castor (much to Lotts' horror) rapidly becomes exceedingly wealthy, although his insecurities over potential robbery and the untrustworthiness of banks compel him to store his copious volumes of cash in every orifice of his home, much to Cylinda's chagrin. Eventually tiring of his increasingly-vast fortune, Castor opts to become a philanthropist, donating large sums to orphanages and poorhouses. Enthused by the ensuing publicity (acclaiming him as "Big-Hearted Castor"), Castor invests his entire fortune into building a public library, only to subsequently discover that his gum, owing to its tendency to self-destruct within the stomachs of its consumers, has caused mass indigestion and halitosis, leading sales to plummet into nonexistence. Despairing at the subsequent loss of his fortune and faced with repaying his debts to Moregain, Castor enlists Ham Gravy's aid in redeveloping the now-obsolete gum material into a new form of golf ball to mixed success.
  • 07/12/1927 - 10/06/1927 (Mrs. Vera Zippy and Grizzly Bill)
Lotts becomes besotted with Vera Zippy, a significantly younger woman whom Castor believes to be feigning affection for Lotts as a gold-digging measure. As her scheme is physically reinforced by the intimidating "Grizzly Bill", the entirety of the police force refuse to aid Castor, leading him to hire the ostensibly-naive detective Gimlet to investigate the crime. While ineffectual in appearance, Gimlet's "fearlessness" is ultimately revealed to be backed by a succession of covert weaponry and reinforcements, enabling him and Castor to arrest Grizzly Bill and expose Vera Zippy's criminal motives to an increasingly-stubborn Lotts.
  • 10/07/1927 - 01/21/1928 (Castor's radio store)
Castor buys a radio store in an attempt to financially support himself and Cylinda, ultimately landing him in the undesirable position of facilitating Lott's hobbyist obsession with the medium. Ultimately, Lotts purchases the store from Castor, leading it to financial ruin under his mismanagement.
1928
  • 01/23/1928 - 03/20/1928 (Castor Oyl, newspaper editor)
Castor shifts tactics by purchasing The Evening Breeze, an unsuccessful local newspaper, the headquarters of which are ultimately burnt to the ground.
  • 03/21/1928 - 05/31/1928 (The return of Blizzard)
Amid the wreckage of his newspaper venture, Castor is reunited with Blizzard, now ageing and potbellied, whom he attempts to re-enter into the cockfighting business to surprisingly successful results. Upon achieving a final comeback through defeating a rooster backed by Lotts, Blizzard is revealed to be the father of a brood under a local farmer, confirming his retirement and prompting him and Castor to part ways for the final time.
  • 06/01/1928 - 09/08/1928 (Broken up, down and out, and crazy)
Upon returning home from his final parting with Blizzard, Castor discovers a Hollywood agent at his home, who desires to sign Cylinda to a film contract due to her photogenic appearance, and urges her to leave her "sap" of a husband. Owing to his outrage over the agent offering him a janitor position in Hollywood, Castor and Cylinda are separated, and Castor, distraught and destitute, seeks refuge in a seedy boarding house plagued by exaggeratedly cramped conditions. After several grinding nights, Castor encounters a ragged and depressed Ham Gravy (marking his first appearance since the previous year), who has descended into the underworld following yet another breakup with Olive Oyl. Castor attempts to reunite the pair, only for an unmotivated Ham to fail to adhere to social norms and, ultimately, to pursue a woman of ambiguous age mainly for her wealth. In response, Olive ostensibly contracts "lunaphobia" (a form of "angry madness"). Ham's lover ultimately reveals herself to be elderly and having a lover of similar age, compelling Ham to return to Olive, whose condition is rapidly revealed to be an attention-seeking ruse.
  • 09/10/1928 - 06/27/1929 (Dice Island) or (Bernice the Whiffle Hen)
Castor's uncle, Lubry Kent Oyl, gives him Bernice, a rare Whiffle Hen with the ability to escape any form of potential trap or danger, spiralling into a series of kidnapping and deceptions leading Castor, Ham Gravy and Olive to the gambling center Dice Island, as well as their first encounter with a weatherbeaten sailor known as Popeye.
1929
  • 06/28/1929 - 09/07/1929 (Olive's false lover)
Now fabulously wealthy from the trio's excursion to Dice Island, Olive is sought and courted by the shady equivocator Julius Herringbone, inciting Ham's envy and leading Castor to enlist Popeye to apprehend Herringbone.
  • 09/09/1929 - 09/24/1929 (Popeye's tutor)
Astonished by Popeye's unorthodox manner of speech and lack of academic knowledge, Castor enlists a private tutor to give Popeye a formal education (despite the sailor's simultaneous bewilderment by and adamant refusal to be contained by the tutor's routines and methods).
  • 09/25/1929 - 10/30/1929 (The Brass-Mine swindle)
Having successfully apprehended Herringbone, Castor, Olive and Ham (in his final regular speaking role within the daily continuity) regain their fortunes from Dice Island. Castor proceeds to spend the entirety of his finances on purchasing a "brass mine" (despite Cole and Nana Oyl's repeated insistence on the fictionality of such an entity) and, accompanied by Popeye and Bernice, sets out to lay claim to the "mine" (to ultimately and predictably unsuccessful results).
  • 10/31/1929 - 05/17/1930 (The Black Barnacle)
Following the exposure of the "brass mine" scam, Popeye falls into a skirmish with a policeman (having first confronted one another in the prior storyline), leading to his and Castor's subsequent arrest; disdainful of Popeye punching a jailer (to unconsciousness), Castor attempts to encourage the sailor to swear off fighting to no avail. Glib and Blabber, the duo of equivocators responsible for the brass mine scam, are arrested soon afterwards and placed into the same cell as Castor and Popeye. While the muscular Blabber attempts to assault Popeye with a knife, the sailor, following a confrontation, finally defeats him with a single abnormally-intense punch, which adversely breaks his arm. Popeye, despite his injury, subsequently warps the bars of the cell, enabling him and Castor to easily escape imprisonment. Pursued by the policeman for reincarceration, the duo are eventually cornered on a coastal clifftop but escape via leaping into the water below, a feat enabled by Popeye's virtual indestructability.
The pair subsequently purloin a small boat and row into deeper water to evade the policeman, seeking refuge on a ship Popeye suspects to be the Black Barnacle, owned by the malevolent and allegedly-mythical Sea Hag. Despite the sailor's fear of the Hag and "evil spiriks" occupying the vessel, Popeye and Castor board the ship and are soon cornered by the policeman. Following a midnight encounter with Castor, the Hag and her henchmen (the muscular Bill Skag and the hulking humanoid Jabbo) gradually reveal their presence to the trio, leading Popeye into a brawl with the similarly-powerful Jabbo. During the fight, Castor discovers Fanny Foster, a young woman abducted by the Sea Hag as a means of obtaining the location of her father's diamond mine in Africa. Ultimately, Popeye momentarily defeats Jabbo and the four (now including Fanny) escape the vessel. Landing on an African shore, Castor rapidly becomes enamored by Fanny and attempts to hyperbolically court her to no avail, while Popeye, seeking food, runs afoul of and defeats a burly man, who (upon Popeye returning a sack of diamonds misconstrued as food to him) is revealed to be Fanny's father Jake Foster. Learning of the Hag's pursuit of the group, Foster arranges a return voyage for the policeman and braces for the eventual arrival of the Hag and her cohorts. Ultimately, Popeye and Foster successfully thwart Skag, Jabbo and the Hag. Castor, primarily a spectator throughout the battle, continues his romantic advances to Fanny, who, having (unrequitedly) fallen for Popeye's strength and charitability, finally rejects him. Indignant with the mostly-bewildered Popeye, Castor (accompanied by Bernice, a fleeting presence throughout the storyline) sets out on a return voyage alone and lands in the midst of a rainforest, in which he increasingly regrets his separation from his "longtime travelling companion" Popeye (an effective confirmation of Ham Gravy's disappearance from the daily strip's canon, given the comparative brevity of Castor's comraderie with the sailor). Popeye eventually tails and reconciles with Castor, albeit not before Bernice is (ultimately unsuccessfully) courted by an African whiffle rooster, the male of her species, who, upon his rejection, follows Castor and Popeye back to the Oyl household.
1930
  • 05/19/1930 - 07/07/1930 (The mystery of Brownstone Hill)
Initially becoming acquainted with Castor through his interest in purchasing Bernice's potential offspring (a venture failing to produce any eggs), Professor Kilph hires Castor and Popeye (now abruptly cast as "world-famous-adventurers") to investigate a house into which a cohort of his, Doctor Wattley, disappeared twenty years prior. Unable to walk within several hundred feet of the house without sustaining slowed heartrate and losing consciousness, Castor and Popeye interrogate several hostile locals (alongside Wattley's nephew, a returning Jack Snork, who the duo briefly observe leaving the house) and, after failing to extract many major details, discover that the wearing of copper bands around their hearts grants them immunity to the signals emanating from the house. Despite Popeye's fear of the "evil spiriks" he believes to be lurking within, he and Castor thus approach and enter the house.
  • 07/08/1930 - 11/08/1930 (The mystery of Wattley and Joe Bilge)
Castor and Popeye successfully enter an upstairs room in the Brownstone Hill house and ostensibly discover Doctor Wattley rigidly sitting besides a small black device. Castor (having significantly and inexplicably gained in intellectual prowess over the past two months) indicates the device to be emitting electrical rays placing Wattley's body into a state of suspended animation. The duo subsequently deactivate the device and return Wattley to Kilph, only for "Wattley" to speak in sailor-reminiscent colloquialisms and syntax upon regaining consciousness. The ostensible "Wattley" thus reveals himself to (mentally) be Jack Snork's former partner (and Popeye's old adversary) Joe Bilge, sent by Snork to rob Wattley of his fortune (owing to the latter's refusal to allow Snork to inherit on the grounds of his moral character) twenty years prior. Castor and Popeye return to the house and (following a brief altercation between Snork and Popeye), discover a man wielding Joe Bilge's body in the cellar. Upon reanimation, "Bilge", now bearing Wattley's mind, recounts that, having remained mentally lucid in his inanimate state, he forced Bilge to exchange bodies with him to administer comeuppance on him for his attempted theft. Wattley and Bilge, via reactivating the device, are subsequently restored to their prior bodies (with Wattley immediately destroying the device afterwards owing to its destructive potential). Now directly implicated in the case, Snork attempts to force Wattley to hand over his millions at gunpoint, but is confronted by Popeye. Following a series of violent brawls, Snork is defeated, with Popeye receiving twenty bullet wounds yet remaining mostly conscious. Concerned for his life, Castor forces the sailor to be hospitalized; Popeye, largely physically-unimpaired during the attempted surgery (successful in removing "all but thirteen" of the bullets) and recovery, is frustrated by the process and promptly walks out without any recovery period. Kilph subsequently rewards Castor and Popeye with sizeable payments, with Popeye (to Castor's chagrin) immediately expending his entire share shooting craps.
  • 11/10/1930 - 12/20/1930 "The Wiltson Mystery"
Castor and Popeye are hired by the affluent Mr. Wiltson, who is routinely visited by a "stranger" forecasting his imminent death. Popeye rapidly suspects Wiltson's butler, perceiving him as untrustworthy, but Wiltson and Castor, merely viewing Popeye as uncouth and impulsive, are unconvinced by his suspicions. However, Wiltson soon abruptly lapses into a coma while seated and is subsequently "nurtured" back to health by his butler, merely accentuating Popeye's suspicions. Castor ultimately discovers, following a questioning, that Wiltson's butler injected poison into his leg from below the floor and subsequently administered an antidote to him to increase his perceived "reliability" to (and thus eligibility to inherit the fortune of) Wiltson. Buoyed by their recent success, Castor and Popeye opt to open a detective agency.
  • 12/22/1930 - 03/16/1931 (Glint Gore, the outlaw)
Popeye and Castor are approached to tail and arrest Glint Gore, a notorious outlaw in the American West. Due to his inexperience in handling a horse, Popeye is separated from Castor and soon encounters Olive Oyl (returning irrevocably to the daily strip following over a year of near-complete absence), who has followed the pair out of curiosity. The two are tasked with weathering the desert's hostile conditions together, with Olive bewildered by Popeye's unorthodox perceptions (and Popeye primarily infatuated with Olive due to her character and abysmal singing, in a stark contrast to the now-erased Ham Gravy). Olive is eventually abducted by a group of bandits, who attempt to enslave her as a cook in their headquarters; infuriated by their low regard for her culinary abilities, Olive straps a handgun to her ankle, wounds each of the bandits and conceals their unconscious bodies in the cellar. Popeye, while searching for Olive, reunites with Castor and (ultimately) the now-liberated Olive and successfully confronts Glint, earning him Olive's affections.
1931
  • 03/17/1931 - 04/04/1931 (A one-way bank)
Paid handsomely for thwarting Glint Gore, Popeye (now solidified as Olive Oyl's boyfriend in the daily continuity) opens a one-way bank, enabling him to allievate others' poverty through directly paying them. Popeye's motives, while partially humanitarian, are rapidly exposed as flawed, however, when Castor discovers him to be paying disproportionately large shares to attractive "bruneck" women, sparking Olive's envy.
  • 05/05/1931 - 11/21/1931 "The Great Rough-House War"
Popeye is sought by King Blozo, the neurotic reigning monarch of Nazilia, as assistance in a war against the neighboring Tonsylania. Travelling to Nazilia alongside Olive and Castor (in his final regular role in the daily continuity), Popeye rapidly becomes entangled within both the conflict and an internal power struggle between Blozo and the megalomaniacal military leader General Bunzo, and proceeds to weather Bunzo's attempts at executing him via decapitation and firing squad due to his nigh-invulnerability.
  • 11/23/1931 - 12/27/1931 "Tragedy in the Land of Saps" or "Popeye Deals a Hand of Fists"
After the conflict with Tonsylania bankrupts Nazilia's economy, King Blozo suffers a nervous breakdown and becomes bedridden, leaving Popeye as a temporary ruler in his stead. Enraged, Bunzo enlists his ally Yama Skonk to dispatch Popeye through a variety of means (including strangulation via a monstrous boa constrictor), none of which account for the extent of Popeye's strength and indestructability. Ultimately, Skonk is discovered and trialled by Popeye, who indicts him and charges him fifty million "pezozees" (Nazilia's primary currency), thus restoring Nazilia's economy and granting Blozo the psychological affirmation necessary to recover.
  • 12/28/1931 - 06/11/1932 "Skullyville"
Returning home from Nazilia (Castor having departed earlier to run his detective agency full-time), Popeye and Olive are tasked by Cole Oyl to journey to and inspect a ranch he has recently purchased in the American desert. The duo subsequently travel to the desert and discover the ranch, despite its largely-dry milk cows and its staff's unorthodox methods, to nonetheless be workable. Desiring to procure a "dance gal" to bolster his saloon's income, Holster, operating from the notoriously violent and unscrupulous nearby town of Skullyville, attempts to abduct Olive while distracting Popeye, during a visit to the saloon, through exploiting his impulsivity. While Holster's lackeys fail to retrieve Olive, they nonetheless succeed in rustling the entirety of the ranch's herd, thus depriving it of income. Owing to this setback, Olive rapidly accepts a visiting Holster's own deceptive offer and is employed at the saloon as a dancer. While Popeye suspects the saloon's staff and regular visitors of criminality, his apprehensions are greeted disdainfully by Olive, who, due to their "admiration" of her frenetic dancing, perceives them as "gentleman". Popeye subsequently enters another brawl with the saloon's regulars and evades arrest via his imperviousness to gunfire. Attempting to reconcile with Olive, Popeye is rejected, although Olive subsequently learns of the increasingly one-sided and oppressive nature of her work and begins to regret forsaking the sailor. Despondently wandering into the midst of the desert, Popeye encounters an elderly prospector, with whom he unearths a gargantuan nugget of gold, which he sells in exchange for a small fortune. Returning to the bar, Popeye cold-shoulders Olive in retaliation, but is rapidly recognized by the saloon's staff and is mercilessly beaten and left in the midst of the desert. Attempting to compensate for her prior rejection of him, Olive administers a can of spinach to Popeye, revitalizing him (in a precursor to the spinach-centric deus ex machina frequently employed by the strip's animated adaptations) and enabling him to apprehend the staff and reacquire the ranch's rustled herd. Olive and Popeye subsequently reconcile and return to the Oyl household.
1932
Popeye is commissioned by Castor, now a full-time detective, to accompany King Blozo and Oscar to a fabled city of gold as a means of restoring the depressed economy of Nazilia. Accompanied by the pair, the disguise-oriented detective "Merlock Jones" (appointed by Castor as an escort) and Olive, Popeye embarks on a nautical voyage to reach the city, although his ship is tailed and eventually infiltrated by the hulking, avaricious Bluto the Terrible, who is likewise seeking the city's wealth.
  • 11/14/1932 - 03/04/1933 "Long Live the King" or "Gold and Goofs"
Blozo, accompanied by Popeye, Olive and Oscar, returns to Nazilia following eight months of absence (and wielding billions in gold acquired from the Eighth Sea) only to discover that General Bunzo has installed himself as the country's monarch. Infuriated, Blozo aggressively reclaims his crown, incensing the now-demoted Bunzo to hire the attractive femme fatale "Dinah Mow" to incite conflict between Blozo and Popeye, now effectively the king's unofficial adviser, and thus destabilize his opponent's reign. Both Blozo and Popeye (to Olive's disdain) rapidly fall for Dinah, thus enabling Bunzo's scheme to partially succeed; Dinah is, however, partially ousted by a disguised Olive, who, disdainful of Popeye rejecting her, dons elaborate makeup and clothing, thus rendering her unrecognizably attractive and earning Blozo's affections. Popeye and Blozo are subsequently confronted by a group of farmers despairing over the deleterious influence a recent drought has exerted on their sweet potato harvests (and resultant income), leading Popeye to advise Blozo to pay a large lump of gold to each Nazilian farmer in compensation. While initially successful, this move predictably bankrupts the kingdom's economy, destroying Blozo's public popularity and granting General Bunzo the opportunity to declare an election in a further bid to acquire kingship. While Bunzo initially holds a significant lead among Nazilia's public, Popeye charges voters exorbitant sums to vote for the general and tears up non-Blozo votes within ballots, thus illicitly biasing the election's results towards Blozo. Regardless of Popeye's efforts, however, Bunzo emerges victorious, relegating Blozo to Oscar's assistant. Intent on aiding Blozo, Popeye hires a detective to investigate the methodology behind Bunzo's campaign, ultimately discovering him to have cheated to an even greater extent than Blozo. The electoral vote is thus promptly recounted, restoring Blozo to kingship and permanently demoting Bunzo to the assistant office-boy position. Olive subsequently exposes her identity to an astonished Popeye, ending her affair with Blozo, and Blozo grants Popeye millions in the gold retrieved from the Eighth Sea.
1933
  • 03/06/1933 - 07/08/1933 "Popeye, King of Popilania"
Granted millions in gold by King Blozo, Popeye purchases one of the monarch's (ostensibly) uninhabited offshore islands, and, aided by his sole civilian and eventual "general" J. Wellington Wimpy (in his daily strip debut), decides to establish and rule his own kingdom, "Popilania", driving an envious King Blozo to remotely sabotage Popilania's spinach crops by unleashing droves of "jay-birds" upon its fields.
  • 07/10/1933 - 12/09/1933 "Star Reporter"
Returning home from his failed leadership ventures, Popeye and Wimpy are hired by the newspaper The Daily Blast (in which Castor Oyl owns a stake) as a reporter. Finding a dearth of local headline-worthy situations, however, the pair opt to create obstructive events to manufacture article subject matter. While infuriating both Castor and the paper's owner Mr. Works, Popeye's employment is truncated when he receives a foundling infant via mail, whom he colloquially dubs "Swee'Pea" and devotedly parents. Mr. Works, however, soon informs Popeye that his foundling child originates from the highly-superstitious Demonia, which is demanding his return owing to the seven moles (resembling the "winning numbers" on a pair of dice) on his back, thus rendering him a potential subject of worship. Popeye is subsequently pursued by two burly Demonian mercenaries, who lure him to an abandoned house and attempt to dispatch him via a severe blow to the head. While Popeye nonetheless defeats both men, the intensity of the blow leads him to contract a rare and allegedly-fatal ailment, the "bonkus of the konkus". Perceiving himself as a "lonely cowboy" (in a potential allusion to his first line in his debut storyline) lacking any "horshes", Popeye, wielding Swee'pea, roves between homes for thousands of miles. Ultimately stranding himself in the midst of the American desert, Popeye is confronted by Gombo, a monstrous "human bloodhound" hired by the Demonian government, but defeats him even within his weakened state. Subsequently, Popeye seeks refuge in a farmhouse, in which he is eventually discovered by Olive and the doctor who initially diagnosed him. While Popeye's initially high temperature indicates his condition to have attained an advanced state, the sailor abruptly recovers entirely before the doctor can administer any treatment (with Swee'Pea merely swallowing the gargantuan pill the doctor initially offers).
  • 12/11/1933 - 01/27/1934 "Popeye in Puddleburg"
Popeye is assigned by Mr. Works to manage The Puddleburg Splash newspaper in Puddleburg, the "laziest town on Earth". Upon arrival, Popeye discovers the (largely-illiterate) town to be dominated by the intimidating "Bruiser Boys", all of whom Popeye gradually dispatches.
1934
  • 01/29/1934 - 07/14/1934 "Romance and Riches"
Olive inherits a fortune from her deceased uncle. Self-assured by her newfound wealth to the extent of egotism, Olive relocates to a fully-staffed mansion and is opportunistically "courted" by the luridly romanticized (and blatantly insincere) rhetoric of Wimpy. Swayed by Wimpy's poetic prowess, Olive thus responds incredulously to Popeye's dually unflattering and affectionate assessment that she "looks like something the cat dragged in" and rejects him. In an attempt to reconcile with Olive, Popeye seeks employment as her butler, only to be further ostracized in favor of Wimpy, now Olive's "romantic interest". Incredulous at Olive's neglect, Popeye attempts to renounce her via dating Amy Loony, a conventionally-unattractive janitor at the Rough House Cafe, although Loony rapidly destroys the relationship through describing Popeye's appearance as "something that the cat dragged in" (a comment ironically sparking his ire). After failing to commit suicide (with Wimpy's aid), Popeye saves a highly attractive young woman from drowning, who, infatuated with the sailor from the outset, reveals herself to be June Vanripple, the daughter of the quixotically wealthy tycoon Jefferson Vanripple (whose reclusive nature has led him to evade numerous invitations from Olive). Accepting the lavish hospitalities the Vanripples bestow upon him in bewilderment, Popeye, lacking any clothing beyond his customary sailor attire, steadfastly refuses to accept the pajamas his hosts offer, thus forcing him to wear June's silk nightgown. Over the following days, Vanripple further insists on purchasing additional clothing for Popeye, which he continues to reject. Unaccustomed to the refusal of his hospitality (or will), Vanripple thus challenges Popeye to wear a series of increasingly-absurd outfit, through which he acquires an affinity for the sailor's character. Attending a gathering of Olive's as June's guest (and evident love interest), Popeye thus socially outcompetes Olive, who, in her envy, enlists Wimpy (with whom she has become increasingly exasperated owing to the repetitiveness of his gestures) to sunder June and Popeye's relationship for $10,000 in hamburger funds. Presenting himself as the rubber magnate "Mr. Jones" ("one of the Jones boys"), Wimpy alleges an offer for two million acres of Vanripple's rubber lands; Popeye rapidly notes the fallacy of Wimpy's rhetoric and purported identity, which persuades June but merely incenses Vanripple, who continues to stubbornly perceive himself as a flawless judge of character. Vanripple thus orders the sailor's arrest, although the elephantine cop he hires is easily thwarted by Popeye, who directly invites Vanripple to the Rough House Cafe to demonstrate Wimpy's true identity.
Further infuriated by Wimpy's failure (albeit falsely bolstered by the continued persuasiveness of his rhetoric), Olive, as persuaded by Wimpy, opts to travel to California and found a film studio (with Wimpy employing himself as her director) through which she can ostensibly ascend to cinematic stardom. Following an attempt to revamp her appearance into a more photogenic form via donning legs sculpted from pliable material (which Popeye is briefly enamored by before unearthing Olive's ruse), Olive arrives in California and is shaken by both the millions required to purchase and rent filmmaking locations and resources and the $20,000 "directorial" wage Wimpy lobbies to a producer behind her back. The resulting filming procedure proves disastrous, owing to Olive's inept acting and singing abilities, and the sheer expense of the filming, which, ultimately amounting to $20 million (equivalent to approximately $450 million in 2023), swiftly wipes out her entire fortune. The resulting shock of her financial and social demotion leads Olive to contract "aspenitis", a condition defined by intense and uncontrollable shaking.
  • 07/16/1934 - 11/03/1934 "Unifruit" or "White Savages"
Sympathetic towards Olive's plight, Popeye enlists Vanripple to accompany him on a voyage to northern Nazilia, a remote rural area in which "unifruit", the sole entity with the ability to cure Olive's aspenitis, lies. Opting to stay within King Blozo's palace (owing to his established rapport with the monarch), Popeye enters the palace to proclaim his intent to the king (who continues to neurotically ruminate over the indecisive demands of his civilians), who fearfully informs him of the "white savages" inhabiting northern Nazilia's unifruit groves. Due to the potency of their poison darts (a single example of which is capable of near-instantaneously killing a horse), Blozo loans Popeye and Vanripple his entire (cowardice-prone) army as assistance. While Popeye successfully defeats the "white savages" (through his superhuman immunity to their darts) and cures Olive, the group return to Nazilia's capital only to discover Blozo demoted to a shoe-shiner, with the temporary loss of his army enabling a rebel known as Tork (naively assisted by Oscar) to seize the throne. Popeye, proclaiming himself to be a "one-man revolution", breaks into the palace to usurp Tork, who overpowers him and casts the sailor into his subterranean "torture pit". Within the pit, Popeye uncovers a dishevelled June Vanripple, who, upon traveling to Nazilia to reunite with Popeye (who has likewise begun to reciprocate her romantic affections), was manipulated and imprisoned by Tork. Learning of his daughter's imprisonment, Vanripple confronts Tork, but is rapidly overpowered; Oscar, horrified at the endangerment of the father of June (with whom he is intensely infatuated), subsequently subdues Tork briefly and eventually casts him into the pit to naively obtain kingship. Popeye subsequently confronts and defeats Tork, although Oscar refuses to salvage him and June from the pit following June's rejection of him. Nonetheless, the duo ultimately manage to escape the pit, dethrone Oscar and reinstall Blozo to kingship.
  • 11/05/1934 - 01/12/1935 "Popeye in Black Valley" or "Human Varmint" or "Vanishing Gold" or "Mountain Mugs" or "Dirty Work on the Hillside"
Popeye is enlisted by Vanripple to investigate suspected criminal activity within Black Valley, a remote region of the American desert in which Vanripple's gold investments are rapidly vanishing. Entering Black Valley disguised as "Molly Jones", Popeye gains employment as a dancer at a local saloon to survey the area (and its highly aggressive inhabitants) for potential suspects, thus rapidly falling afoul of the uninhibitedly violent Lem Kronch, a recurring purloiner of Vanripple's profits. Following repeated unsuccessful attempts to physically assault "Molly", Kronch falls for "her". Eventually sighted undisguised, Popeye attempts to maintain his ruse to Kronch by alleging himself to be the twin sibling of "Molly". Resultantly, Kronch's affections for "Molly" intensify to the extent of granting "her" access to a cavern beneath his home, in which aggression-accentuating chemical substances are absorbed by a root of a cactus (thus producing cactus berries which, when consumed, erode psychological inhibition and thereby "kill conscience", hence Kronch's violent demeanour). Kronch subsequently attempts to forcibly wed "Molly", compelling Popeye to expose his disguise; Kronch nonetheless remains admiring of Popeye's physical prowess and covertly administers cactus berries to him, removing his inhibitions and leading him to join Kronch's gang. Bewildered by the now-vehement letters Popeye is mailing to Vanripple, Olive, following a failed attempt to confront Kronch herself, hires Castor Oyl (now a "world-famous detective") to infiltrate Black Valley and investigate Popeye's abnormal behavior. Popeye, scarcely withholding himself from further violence, suggests "myrtholene", a laughter-inducing substance invented by John Sappo, as a potential remedy for Kronch's victims, a scheme ultimately proving successful and enabling Kronch's arrest.
1935
  • 01/14/1935 - 04/20/1935 "The Sea Hag's Sister" or "The Pool of Youth"
Castor and Popeye ("personally assisted" by Wimpy) are hired by the elderly tycoon Gizzit to unearth the Pool of Youth, which his gardener, scarcely aged beyond young adulthood at 200, verifies to be existent. Nonetheless, Gizzit's gardener forewarns the group that the sole means of discerning the pool's location involves communication with the Sea Hag's sister, currently residing on her better-known sibling's ship alongside her brutish lackey Toar. Popeye, Castor, Wimpy and Gizzit (assisted by Castor's most recent hire "Mr. X", ultimately exposed as a disguised Olive) proceed to infiltrate the Black Barnacle, although the Sea Hag rapidly discovers their presence. Adversarial towards her sister and Toar (revealed to be an ageless, elephantine caveman), however, the Hag forms a tenuous alliance with the group to regain full control of her vessel. Despite Toar's immense strength and intimidating demeanor, Wimpy nonchalantly opts to befriend him, opaquely deeming him a "nice fellow". Eventually tiring of the group's presence, the Sea Hag's sister commands Toar to kill every other individual on the vessel; while Wimpy initially attempts to circumvent his fate through persuading Toar that crossed fingers equate to invulnerability, the Sea Hag's sister counters Wimpy's tactics, leaving the caveman to confront Popeye. Following an intense brawl (in which Popeye, despite the caveman breaking his neck, proves a well-matched opponent for Toar), Popeye earns Toar's respect, abruptly sparking a friendship between the pair. Subsequently renouncing his servitude to the Sea Hag's sister, Toar aids Popeye in warding off the hoard of cavemen the witch rouses to defend the Pool of Youth, enabling Popeye and his cohorts to obtain substantial volumes of water from the Pool and (now accompanied by Toar, owing to his newfound affinity for the sailor) return home, albeit not before Olive, Castor, Wimpy and Gizzit ingest an excessive amount of the water obtained (through which they briefly regress to a mentally childlike state).
  • 04/22/1935 - 10/19/1935 "Popeye's Ark"
Popeye decides to found a new nation (with himself as leader or "dictipator") by transporting a group of cilivians overseas via an ark. Owing to the exorbitant cost of such an endeavor, however, the sailor is forced to accept funding from the deeply misogynistic tycoon Mr. Sphink, who agrees to endorse Popeye's scheme on the condition of no women being granted entry to the subsequently-founded nation. Fixated on the raw fulfilment of his scheme, Popeye accepts Sphink's terms, drawing the ire of Olive, who, alongside Castor and Wimpy (themselves disdainful of Sphink's ideology), becomes alienated from the sailor. Buoyed by Sphink's funding (and accompanied by the magnate, Toar, Swee'Pea and a bevy of male civilians), Popeye ultimately launches his ark; via Wimpy's (evidently-shoddy) craftsmanship, he, Olive and Castor likewise construct a (significantly smaller and more ramshackle) vessel and tail Popeye in a bid to found their own competing nation. Following a lengthy and arduous journey, Popeye's ark ultimately lands at an island he claims as "Spinachovia" and proceeds to govern, although his tenure as "dictipator" rapidly descends into conflict owing to his civilians' dissatisfaction with the nation's lack of women (a deficiency Olive exploits to accentuate immigration to the adjacent kingdom she has simultaneously founded).
  • 10/21/1935 - 03/14/1936 "You Can't Expect April Showers from War Clouds"
Olive, Castor and Wimpy are driven from their kingdom by the armed forces of the warlike neighbouring country of Brutia, heralding a direct military risk to Spinachovia's existence. Amidst Popeye's (largely unsuccessful) attempts to mobilize and train Spinachovia's cowardice-prone and underprepared population, Brutian monarch King Zlobbo commissions an attractive spy, "Zexa Peal", to infiltrate Popeye's court and gather vital political and military data. Upon her entrance, Popeye rapidly becomes violently infatuated with Zexa, inciting Olive's envy. A brawl eventually ensues between the two women, during which Olive successfully exposes Zexa's identity before the sailor, tearfully leading him to condemn her to execution via firing squad. Spinachovia's civilians, meanwhile, learn of Zexa's presence and, envious of Popeye's access to a female lover, riot against his regime. Although Zexa subsequently attempts to manipulate Toar into subduing Popeye, her success is short-lived; nonetheless, the blatant incompetence of Spinachovia's firing squad (which fails to shoot her over a period of several hours) enables Zexa to take flight, having successfully completed her mission. Zlobbo thusly proceeds with his invasion force. Failing to successfully mobilize his civilians against the clock, Popeye finally boards the Brutian force's primary battleship and begins to manually disassemble it. Upon encountering Brutia's chief admiral, Popeye attempts to enter into negotiations (threatening further manual destruction of the ship as a condition of refusal), but his attempts are unsuccessful. Despairing of his army's abilities to withstand the oncoming invasion, Popeye travels directly to Zlobbo's palace to attempt further negotiations, but is merely imprisoned and assaulted by a disguised lackey of Zlobbo's, whom he nonetheless promptly defeats. Escaping Zlobbo's palace, Popeye hijacks a Brutian supply ship (containing vast quantities of spinach) and steers it into Spinachovia's port, enabling him to systematically administering the vegetable to his soldiers (and thusly heighten their physical resilience and aggression). As Zlobbo's forces continue to advance upon Spinachovia (sparking a battle in which Swee'Pea unexpectedly participates), Popeye infiltrates the Brutian camp, renders their general Zazz unconscious and paints pupils on his closed eyelids, enabling him to command Brutia's withdrawal under Zazz's guise. Angered and jaded by months of warfare and political unrest, Spinachovia's civilians subsequently rescind their support of the country and opt to return home, leaving a "disgustipated" Popeye to return to the Oyl household alongside Olive, Castor, Wimpy and Swee'Pea.
1936
Olive returns from Spinachovia to discover that an enigmatic package (addressed to herself) has arrived in the Oyl household. This package is ultimately revealed to contain Eugene the Jeep, a teleporting, clairvoyant yellow animal hailing from the fourth dimension, thus enabling (as Wimpy promptly demonstrates) foolproof gambling and resultantly-immense financial gain. Upon an informant hearing of the Jeep's arrival, resultantly, Olive, Popeye and Wimpy are forced to protect the Jeep from abduction and exploitation by the unscrupulous and financially-minded Mr. Chizzelflint.
Popeye uses Eugene's powers to track down his lost father, Poopdeck Pappy, who, following an arduous sea voyage, is discovered to be a mercurial misanthrope (with an overt physical resemblance to Popeye) who, having inhabited a remote island for decades alongside fellow sailor Pooky Jones, harbors (ostensibly) minimal familial love for his son.
  • 11/30/1936 - 12/14/1936 "Civilizing Poppa"
Transporting Pappy back to the city against the elderly man's will, Popeye settles Pappy into city life as the miserly sailor gradually warms up to his son.
A series of haunting flute melodies, played by an enigmatic cloaked figure and audible only late at night, reactivate a traumatic memory of Pappy's, leading Popeye and his friends into an investigation culminating in imprisonment within the abode of the Sea Hag.
1937
Alarmed by the sight of Susan, a destitute young woman, being confronted by the police for stealing fruit to alleviate her starvation, Popeye apprehends the offending policemen (thus landing him in legal conflict) and, owing to his humanitarian inclinations, opts to take Susan's care and livelihood into his own hands despite the pursuit of both legal officials and a furiously-envious Olive Oyl.
Poopdeck Pappy's lechery and misanthropy finally climax in legal ramifications after he throws his (significantly younger) date off a bridge owing to her alleged bad breath, obliging Popeye to defend his father in court despite the blatancy of his misdeeds.
  • 11/15/1937 - 03/05/1938 "Valley of the Goons"
Following Poopdeck Pappy's incarceration, Popeye and Wimpy enlist on a ship that, unbeknownst to them, intends to poach Goons from their home island, leading the duo to ally with the island's indigenous Goon community which, unexpectedly, is now governed by an exiled King Blozo (assisted by Oscar).
Segar became terminally ill in December 1937, early in this storyline's duration, and was subsequently hospitalized; the strip for January 1, 1938, is the final installment of the story to bear Segar's signature. Doc Winner, a staff artist for King Features, took over as both writer and artist and completed this story.
1938
  • 03/07/1938 - 05/21/1938 "Hamburger Sharks and Sea Spinach"
This story was completely drawn by Doc Winner. It contains no art by Segar, as he was still ill and unable to return to the strip.
  • 05/23/1938 - 12/10/1938 "King Swee'Pea"
Popeye and Swee'Pea (alongside Olive, Wimpy, Toar and a now-released Poopdeck Pappy) travel to Demonia to enable the latter to claim his birthright as the country's monarch (and thereby preserve the kingdom's agriculture from an onslaught of attacks by subteranean demons).
Segar returned as writer and artist and started this story in May, however, Tom Sims and Doc Winner would complete it after Segar once again became ill in August. The last daily strip that bore Segar's signature (both within this storyline and overall) was dated August 27, 1938. He died in October 1938.

Post-Segar stories[]

1938-1939

Sims and Winner did two complete adventures as a team and began a third, before Winner left in late 1939.

1938
  • 12/12/1938 - 03/25/1939 "Spinach Juice Springs"
1939
  • 03/27/1939 - 08/12/1939 "Homeward Bound"
  • 08/14/1939 - 02/10/1940 "The Rainbird"
1939-1954

Bela Zaboly took over the art duties in December, 1939, and completed "The Rainbird". The Sims/Zaboly team would maintain Segar's practice of developing longer adventures.

1940
  • 02/12/1940 - 04/20/1940 "The Roving Champion"
  • 04/22/1940 - 07/06/1940 "The Roving Champion in the Land of the Jeeps"
  • 07/08/1940 - 09/28/1940 "Seven Sons of the Sea Hag" or "Mother Haggy's Chicks" or "Only Their Mother Could Love Them" or "Ugh"
  • 09/30/1940 - 01/11/1941 "Mystery Mansion"
1941
  • 01/13/1941 - 03/15/1941 "Where There's a Will There's a Relative"
  • 03/17/1941 - 09/02/1941 "Davy Jones and the Sea Goon"
  • 09/03/1941 - 11/22/1941 "Wimpy's Tadpole Tablets"
  • 11/24/1941 - 03/31/1942 "Admiral Popeye"
1942
  • 04/01/1942 - 07/11/1942 "The Seagoosk"
  • 07/13/1942 - 01/02/1943 "The Islands of Sunk Sun"
1943
  • 01/04/1943 - 05/09/1943 "Popeye in Limbo"
  • 05/10/1943 - 07/17/1943 "Oh, Ring Them Bells"
  • 07/19/1943 - 12/11/1943 "Sea-Dust"
  • 12/13/1943 - 02/17/1945 "Popeye in the Navy"
1944

Sims and Zaboly continued to create longer stories for the rest of their run on Thimble Theatre, but did not give every story an individual title.

1945
  • 02/19/1945 - 04/21/1945 (war against spinach) or (jitterbug coast-to-coast)
  • 04/23/1945 - 05/26/1945 (the strongest beard in the world) or (Sampson and Delovely) or (the spy who loved me beard)
  • 05/28/1945 - 06/30/1945 (Popeye opens Galosh College)
  • 07/02/1945 - 08/10/1946 "Popeye on Paradise Peak"
1946
  • 08/12/1946 - 11/19/1946 "The Island of Laughing Waters"
  • 11/19/1946 - 01/04/1947 "A Two Million Dollar Comedy"
1947
  • 01/06/1947 - 04/19/1947 "Wimpy and the Whaleburgers"
  • 04/21/1947 - 11/15/1947 "Popeye and the Evil Echo"
  • 11/17/1947 - 01/24/1948 "The Upping Atom"
1948
  • 01/26/1948 - 04/24/1948 "Tears from Blue Skies" or "Popeye and Pluvious"
  • 04/26/1948 - 06/21/1948 "Miss Juice of 1948"
  • 06/22/1948 - 08/14/1948 "The Iceman from Iceland"
  • 08/16/1948 - 12/04/1948 "Hooray for Ourside, You!!" or "If They Want Rooster, Why Take the Pig Out of the Pigskin??"
  • 12/06/1948 - 04/02/1949 "Boogerman"
1949
  • 04/04/1949 - 12/03/1949 "The Lost Bomb Islands"
  • 12/05/1949 - 02/11/1950 "The Will of the Wimpy"
1950
  • 02/13/1950 - 03/04/1950 "The Goat-Headed Frogmen"
  • 03/06/1950 - 06/03/1950 "The Big Fight of the Century"
  • 06/05/1950 - 06/24/1950 "Loopy vs. Clemmy"
  • 06/26/1950 - 08/19/1950 "Mary Lou of H-Burger Ranch"
  • 08/21/1950 - 11/25/1950 (The Cheerful Earful Club)
  • 11/27/1950 - 04/07/1951 "Truth Is Stranger"
1951
  • 04/09/1951 - 06/30/1951 "A Great Mystery"
  • 07/02/1951 - 09/06/1951 "The Fresh-Water Denizen"
  • 09/07/1951 - 12/15/1951 "Square Egg Island"
  • 12/17/1951 - 02/09/1952 "No Stone Unturned"
1952
  • 02/11/1952 - 08/17/1952 "Look Out, Lummox!!" or "Who Slew Hillary Hee??"
  • 08/19/1952 - 12/12/1952 "There's a Hole in the Bottom!!"
1953
  • 01/02/1953 - 05/09/1953 "Pturkey Island"
  • 05/11/1953 - 06/20/1953 "Napple or Yapple"
  • 09/07/1953 - 12/28/1953 "Uss vs. Themm & Thees & Thoos"
  • 12/28/1953 - 02/22/1954 "Pails of Pearls"
1954
  • 02/23/1954 - 06/07/1954 "Let Us Look to Lettuce"
  • 06/08/1954 - 07/17/1954 "Popeye's Carnival"
  • 07/19/1954 - 08/28/1954 "Wimpy's Walking Handbags"
  • 08/30/1954 - 10/29/1954 (King Bee and Queen Bee)
  • 11/01/1954 - 12/04/1954 (WEE vs. I.O.U.)
1954-1959

In November 1954, Ralph Stein took over the writing duties on the dailies while Bela Zaboly remained as the artist. In December of the same year, Stein had Popeye meet explorer Sir Pomeroy and, for the rest of the Stein/Zaboly run, the sailor would travel with the Englishman, having adventures around the world and in outer space. Most stories from this era did not have individual titles.

1955
  • 12/06/1954 - 02/22/1955 (The Abdominal Snowman)
  • 02/23/1955 - 04/16/1955 "Olive Oyl's Dilemma"
  • 04/18/1955 - 07/16/1955 "Private Life of a Privateer!"
  • 07/18/1955 - 08/13/1955 (Uranium Huntr) or (The Living Geiger Counter)
  • 08/15/1955 - 10/08/1955 (Dopy Nick) or (The Pink Whale)
  • 10/10/1955 - 12/03/1955 (The Fish God of Gugattoo Island)
  • 12/05/1955 - 02/04/1956 (Pappy to the Rescue!)
1956
  • 02/06/1956 - 06/02/1956 (Deucedly Odd Goings-On!)
  • 06/04/1956 - 07/21/1956 (T-Bone Steak Trees) or (Steakiflora Hannibalus Carny What?)
  • 07/23/1956 - 10/06/1965 (Opperation: Aissuria!)
  • 10/08/1956 - 11/24/1956 (Loch Mess, Clotland) or (Messy Bussiness in the Loch)
  • 11/26/1956 - 02/09/1957 (The Slippisippi Riverboat Race)
1957
  • 11/26/1956 - 02/09/1957 (The Slippisippi Riverboat Race)
  • 02/11/1957 - 03/30/1957 (Grand Poo Bahr of Smoochistan)
  • 04/01/1957 - 06/01/1957 (More Private Lives of a Privateer!)
  • 06/04/1957 - 08/10/1957 (The Lost Prince of Effluvia)
  • 08/12/1957 - 09/28/1957 (Irma th' 'Ermit's Youth Lotion!)
  • 09/30/1957 - 11/23/1957 (A Viper called le 'Burgoo!)
  • 11/25/1957 - 02/08/1958 (Popeycatapetl!) or (Th' Demon Idol O' Inkypoo!)
1958
  • 02/10/1958 - 04/12/1958 (Steam Rocket to Infinity!)
  • 04/14/1958 - 06/07/1958 (Wreck o' th' Pegaso D'Oro) or (The Ispano-Squweezer)
  • 06/09/1958 - 08/09/1958 (The Great Trans-Polar Balloon Race)
  • 08/11/1958 - 10/25/1958 (A Man in a Moon)
1959
  • 10/27/1958 - 01/03/1959 (Dragon or Overgrown Lizard?)
  • 01/05/1959 - 04/17/1959 (The Moon Glooph)
  • 04/19/1959 - 08/08/1959 (Nonny the Equine Genius)
1959-1986

Bud Sagendorf took over as writer and artist in 1959. He started with shorter continuities and standalone strips, then later wrote longer adventures.

1959
  • 08/10/1959 - 12/26/1959 (Pappy the beatnik)
  • 12/28/1959 - 07/16/1960 (Moon Plant)
1960
  • 07/18/1960 - 11/12/1960 (Spinach famine) or (Muscle bound jay birds) or (Spinachovia vs. Creamatonia)
  • 11/14/1960 - 02/04/1961 (The parrot with the gold doubloons)
1961
  • 02/06/1961 - 05/27/1961 (Cactus Olive) or (The Tarantula Flats Ladies' Guild)
  • 05/29/1961 - 09/09/1961 "Me Pappy is Engaged to a Beask"
  • 09/11/1961 - 01/06/1962 (The ol' family homestead)
1962
  • 01/08/1962 - 04/21/1962 (Evil spells vs nasty tricks)
  • 04/23/1962 - 07/14/1962 "Hi, Earthman!" or "Look What We Found!"
  • 07/16/1962 - 09/29/1962 "Too Much Oyl!" or "One Olive is Enough!"
  • 10/01/1962 - 11/20/1962 (Granny won't act her age)
  • 10/22/1962 - 11/10/1962 (Society Against Pugilism)
  • 11/12/1962 - 02/02/1963 "The Door to Nowhere" or " Knock! Knock!" or "Who's There"
1963
  • 02/04/1963 - 03/16/1963 "Target" or "Thanks for the Rocket, Buster"
  • 03/17/1963 - 04/20/1963 (Birdseed adopts Swee'Pea)
  • 04/22/1963 - 07/27/1963 "The Mad Computer" or "The Tin Can Utopia!"
  • 07/29/1963 - 11/19/1963 "Don't Trust Spies!" or "Dames is Worse than Men Spies!" or "Beauty is Jus' Skin Covering fer No-Good Spies!"
  • 11/19/1963 - 06/27/1964 "Popeye Meets the Folk Singer" or "Fickle is Olive's Love"
1964
  • 06/29/1964 - 12/19/1964 (Cousin Smash comes to visit)
  • 12/21/1964 - 05/08/1965 (The world's smallest giant)
1965
  • 05/10/1965 - 06/19/1965 (Everyone wants Pappy to retire)
  • 06/21/1965 - 07/03/1965 (The Jellybean King)
  • 07/05/1965 - 11/27/1965 "Mars Mania!"
  • 11/29/1965 - 03/05/1966 (Two private witches) or (Long lost sisters)
1966
  • 03/07/1966 - 03/19/1966 Individual daily strips
  • 03/21/1966 - 06/18/1966 "Miskery Guest!"
  • 06/20/1966 - 07/09/1966 "The Case of the Missing Moocher"
  • 07/11/1966 - 08/12/1966 "Draft Call!"
  • 08/14/1966 - 11/22/1966 "The Grumper Invasion"
  • 11/23/1966 - 12/24/1966 Individual daily strips
  • 12/26/1966 - 03/25/1967 (The Jelly Bean King)
1967
  • 03/27/1967 - 04/01/1967 (Brutus challenges Popeye to a fight without spinach)
  • 04/03/1967 - 05/13/1967 "Fight" or "Can a Non-Spinach-Eating Shrimp of a Sailor Defeat a Three-Hundred-Pound Brute Who Won't Fight Fair?"
  • 05/15/1967 - 07/22/1967 "Royal Present" or "Can a Kingly Gift Bring Happiness into the Drab Life of a Sailor Man?"
  • 07/24/1967 - 09/16/1967 "The Hero!"
  • 09/18/1967 - 02/17/1968 "Popalania!"
1968
  • 02/19/1968 - 03/16/1968 (Popeye disappears)
  • 03/18/1968 - 08/24/1968 "The Popeye Story!" or "The Man Who Licked Popeye!!"
  • 08/26/1968 - 02/15/1969 "Witch is Witch?" or "Can a Sweet Girl Become an Evil Witch And Stay Lovable?"
  • 02/17/1969 - 05/31/1969 "Sailor for Hire!"
  • 06/02/1969 - 09/27/1969 "Sauce for the Gander"
  • 09/29/1969 - 12/06/1969 "The Purple Pearl"
  • 12/08/1969 - 05/23/1970 "Who Am I?"
1970
  • 05/25/1970 - 10/10/1970 "Moon Eggs!"
  • 10/12/1970 - 01/16/1971 "Heiress!"
1971
  • 01/18/1971 - 04/10/1971 "Patcheye the Pirate!"
  • 04/12/1971 - 07/03/1971 "EMOK"
  • 07/05/1971 - 09/04/1971 "Fatbrain!"
  • 09/06/1971 - 12/11/1971 "The Bride!"
  • 12/13/1971 - 02/12/1972 "Ghosk Town!"
1972
  • 02/14/1972 - 04/29/1972 "The Return of Eugene the Jeep!" or "Safety is the Arms of a Sailor!"
  • 05/01/1972 - 06/17/1972 "The Doomsday Doll!"
  • 06/19/1972 - 09/30/1972 "The 5:05"
  • 10/02/1972 - 11/18/1972 "Power Boy!"
  • 11/20/1972 - 03/17/1973 "Goon Valley!"
1973
  • 03/19/1973 - 06/02/1973 "Yuck!"
  • 06/04/1973 - 08/25/1973 "Battle Royal!"
  • 08/27/1973 - 11/03/1973 "Western Woo!"
  • 11/05/1973 - 04/20/1974 "The Mysterious Voyage" or "Sailing the Eighth Sea!"
1974
  • 04/22/1974 - 07/27/1974 "Pappy Work!"
  • 07/29/1974 - 10/12/1974 "A King is a King, is a King, is a King..."
  • 10/14/1974 - 03-15-1975 "Spincoal!"
1975
  • 03/17/1975 - 06/21/1975 "Spook Ship" or "Can a Live Sailor Navigate with a Cargo of Ghosks?"
  • 06/23/1975 - 09/13/1975 "The Artist!"
  • 09/15/1975 - 11/09/1975 "Husband Contest!"
  • 11/10/1975 - 01/24/1976 "The Return of the Grumpers!"
1976
  • 01/26/1976 - 06/05/1976 "The Thing Next Door!"
  • 06/07/1976 - 09/18/1976 "Lady Presidink!"
  • 09/20/1976 - 11/13/1976 "Too Many Pots Spoil the Cook!"
  • 11/15/1976 - 01/08/1977 "The Twist! Terror Strikes the Waterfront!" or "Life Takes a New Twist in Sailor Town!"
1977
  • 01/10/1977 - 04/31/1977 "The Beast!"
  • 05/02/1977 - 07/09/1977 "Water-Front Moll!"
  • 07/11/1977 - 09/10/1977 "Fresh Fish!"
  • 09/12/1977 - 11/19/1977 "I Spy"
  • 11/21/1977 - 03/18/1978 "The Prince and the Skinny Dame!"
1978
  • 03/20/1978 - 05/13/1978 "Ripe Tomato!"
  • 05/15/1978 - 07/22/1978 "The Others" or "A Weird Meeting of the Unascertained"
  • 07/24/1978 - 10/28/1978 "Li'l Lady Lorst!"
  • 10/30/1978 - 01/13/1979 "Computer Fisks!" or "Popeye Meets the Electronic Age!"
1979
  • 01/15/1979 - 05/19/1979 "Ghosk Ship!"
  • 05/21/1979 - 07/07/1979 "Dames!"
  • 07/09/1979 - 09/15/1979 "Big Nose!"
  • 09/17/1979 - 01/05/1979 "The Brass Crown!"
1980
  • 01/07/1980 - 02/23/1980 "Names?"
  • 02/25/1980 - 05/31/1980 "Viper Velma!"
  • 06/02/1980 - 07/12/1980 "Career!"
  • 07/14/1980 - 09/27/1980 "Fatso!"
  • 09/29/1980 - 12/06/1980 "Return of the Grumpers!"
  • 12/08/1980 - 01/24/1981 "The Arful Infink!"
1981
  • 01/26/1981 - 05/02/1981 "Lights! Camera! Action!!"
  • 05/04/1981 - 07/25/1981 "Blozo the Gone!"
  • 07/27/1981 - 10/31/1981 "Back-Room Pest!"
  • 11/02/1981 - 01/23/1982 "Science vs. Sorcery!"
1982
1983
  • 01/10/1983 - 03/26/1983 "Show-Down!"
  • 03/28/1983 - 04/09/1983 Individual daily strips
  • 04/11/1983 - 05/14/1983 "Two of a Kind!" or "One Wimpy is Too Much!"
  • 05/16/1983 - 07/23/1983 "The Half of It!" or "Fifty Percent Is Better Than Nothing!"
  • 07/25/1983 - 09/03/1983 "Get Lorst" or "All Pests Aren't in the Garden"
  • 09/05/1983 - 10/29/1983 "Pappy's Secret!"
  • 10/31/1983 - 01/07/1984 "Head Power!"
1984
  • 01/09/1984 - 03/17/1984 "Home!"
  • 03/19/1984 - 05/19/1984 "Royal Spook!"
  • 05/21/1984 - 06/09/1984 (Waterfront Olympics!)
  • 06/11/1984 - 07/28/1984 "The Big Loss!"
  • 07/30/1984 - 08/11/1984 (Salty returns)
  • 08/13/1984 - 09/22/1984 "Who?"
  • 09/24/1984 - 09/29/1984 Individual daily strips
  • 10/01/1984 - 01/19/1985 "Time Off!"
1985
  • 01/21/1985 - 02/23/1985 "The Block!"
  • 02/25/1985 - 05/25/1985 "Gone and Forgotten!"
  • 05/27/1985 - 07/13/1985 "Crisis on Jeep Island!"
  • 07/15/1985 - 08/31/1985 "Hi-Tec Trauma!"
  • 09/02/1985 - 10/26/1985 "Olive's Joint!"
  • 10/28/1985 - 12/14/1985 "The Evil Plot!"
  • 12/16/1985 - 01/25/1986 "Who?"
1986
  • 01/27/1986 - 02/01/1986 "The Loving Pet!"
  • 02/03/1986 - 02/22/1986 "The Return!"
1986-1992

Bobby London took over as creator of the daily strip in February, 1986. He initially wrote standalone strips and strips with related gags that lasted up to a few weeks. London started creating longer stories in mid-1987.

1986
  • 02/24/1986 - 09/14/1986 Individual daily strips
  • 09/15/1986 - 10/11/1986 (Olive's younger boyfriend)
  • 11/10/1986 - 12/15/1986 (Long sea voyage)
  • 12/17/1986 - 12/29/1986 (A Christmas story)
1987
  • 01/13/1987 - 01/23/1987 (Popeye and Castor go fishing)
  • 06/29/1987 - 10/03/1987 "Sea Hag City"
  • 10/26/1987 - 02/27/1988 "Relish of the Gods"
1988
  • 02/29/1988 - 05/28/1988 "Popeye's Main Event"
  • 05/30/1988 - 10/08/1988 "The Days and Nights of Olive Oyl"
  • 10/10/1988 - 10/22/1988 "Wimpy and Son"
  • 10/24/1988 - 04/22/1989 "The Smog"
1989
  • 04/26/1989 - 11/25/1989 "Heavy Metal Toar"
  • 11/27/1989 - 06/23/1990 "Mad Avenue"
1990
  • 06/25/1990 - 05/11/1991 "Popeye's Apocalypse"
1991
  • 05/13/1991 - 02/01/1992 "The Return of Bluto"
1992
  • 02/05/1992 - 06/20/1992 "Stupid Little Hat!"
  • 06/22/1992 - ??/??/???? "Witch Hunt"
Due to the controversial nature of this story, Bobby London was fired from Popeye in July, 1992, and King Features Syndicate recalled several weeks of strips from syndication. London, however, did complete "Witch Hunt", which eventually saw publication in the book "Popeye: The Classic Newspaper Comics by Bobby London, Volume Two" in 2014.
1992-present

After Bobby London was fired, King Features ran reprints of earlier London strips for a short time. Rather than seeking an artist to replace London, King Features then ran reprints of the Bud Sagendorf era of the strip, a practice which continues to this day.

Sunday strips[]

Stories created by Segar[]

Sundays serialized their own stories in parallel to the daily strip, and also alternated these storylines with standalone gags.

1925-1928

Segar's Sunday pages began on January 25, 1925 as a series of unrelated multi-panel gag strips. While he eventually drew stories or related gags spanning several weeks, the longer adventures did not start until 1928.

1926
  • 10/24/1926 - 10/31/1926 (The mechanical woman)
1927
  • 02/20/1927 - 03/06/1927 (Cylinda the bum cook)
  • 07/24/1927 - 07/31/1927 (Ham Gravy the dentist)
  • 08/14/1927 - 08/21/1927 (Castor's murder show)
  • 12/11/1927 - 12/18/1927 (Castor's pet elephant)
1928
  • 01/15/1928 - 01/29/1928 (The mean neighbor)
1928-1930
  • 03/04/1928 - 03/02/1930 "The Great American Desert Saga"
Castor Oyl and Ham Gravy travel to the American West to seek their fortune. This story lasts from March 1928 to March 1930, constituting the longest continuous storyline in the strip's history (to the point where it could be alternately viewed as an entire "era" of the Sunday Thimble Theatre in itself). Popeye would not debut until January 1929, and he does not appear in this story until the very last strip on 03/02/1930, when Castor and Ham decide to head home to Castor's sister and Ham's girlfriend, Olive Oyl, only to discover she is now dating Popeye.
1930
  • 03/09/1930 - 03/30/1930 (Popeye's first courtship of Olive Oyl)
In the opening strip, Ham Gravy fights Popeye over Olive. In the next one, Ham is described as being "out of town", and Popeye's courtship continues without him. Two Sunday strips later, Olive breaks up with Popeye.
  • 04/06/1930 - 07/06/1930 (Popeye, prize-fighter)
  • 07/20/1930 - 08/03/1930 (Popeye's second courtship of Olive Oyl)
The 07/13/1930 strip is unrelated to anything before and after and is just of Popeye and Castor fishing. On 07/20, Popeye fights a rival for Olive's affections, a one-shot character, with no mention of Ham Gravy. This suggests that Ham (who made his last appearance in the Sunday strips on May 11 and in the dailies on May 12) is already ancient history to both Olive Oyl and the strip itself.
  • 08/10/1930 - 08/17/1930 (Joe Barnacle)
  • 08/24/1930 - 08/31/1930 (Popeye's dreams)
  • 09/07/1930 - 11/02/1930 (Popeye, Olive, and Popeye's rivals)
  • 11/09/1930 - 01/18/1931 (Popeye, prize-fighter again)
1931
  • 01/25/1931 - 02/15/1931 "Popeye, the S'Prise Fighter"
  • 03/15/1931 - 06/07/1931 (Popeye fights against Tinearo)
Notable for being the earliest arc to feature a prototypical version of Wimpy (debuting on May 3), who does not coalesce into his most well-known appearance and mannerisms until mid-1932, although he would be named "Mister Wimpy" as early as the May 24 strip. Rough-House and his cafe debut in the same strip that names Wimpy.
  • 06/14/1931 - 06/21/1931 (The Rough-House Cafe)
  • 06/28/1931 - 08/09/1931 (Popeye fights against a gorilla)
Popeye is chosen to resolve the matter of who would win in a fight, a gorilla or the strongest man.
  • 09/20/1931 - 11/29/1931 "The Johnny Brawn Fight"
  • 12/13/1931 -02/21/1932 (The Battle Royal)
1932
  • 04/24/1932 - 05/01/1932 (Popeye fights against a robot)
  • 05/29/1932 - 07/24/1932 "Orphan Mary Ann"
Popeye and Wimpy take care of a young orphan girl, Mary Ann.
  • 10/30/1932 - 11/06/1932 (The Rough-House Cafe's fly problem)
  • 11/13/1932 - 11/20/1932 (Bobby vs. Puggy)
1933
  • 01/15/1933 - 02/05/1933 (Wimpy vs. Rough-House)
  • 02/12/1933 - 03/05/1933 "Wimpy's Mother"
  • 03/19/1933 - 03/26/1933 (Wimpy's disguise)
  • 04/16/1933 - 04/23/1933 (Rough-house's nervous breakdown)
  • 04/30/1933 - 05/07/1933 (Wimpy's violin)
  • 05/14/1933 - 05/28/1933 (Mr. Soppy and Prince Wellington)
  • 06/11/1933 - 07/16/1933 "Popeye Fights Bullo Oxheart"
  • 07/30/1933 - 08/13/1933 (The Rough-House Cafe's new waitress)
  • 09/03/1933 - 09/10/1933 (Boxing vs. Wrestling)
  • 10/08/1933 - 11/26/1933 "Popeye's Restaurant"
  • 12/03/1933 - 08/12/1934 "Plunder Island"
Popeye meets the Sea Hag's minion, Alice the Goon.

1934

  • 08/19/1934 - 09/23/1934 (Kid Nitro)
1935
  • 01/20/1935 - 01/27/1935 (Poisoned hamburger)
  • 02/03/1935 - 02/17/1935 (Popeye in evening dress)
  • 02/24/1935 - 03/10/1935 (Bald Bill Bankley)
  • 03/24/1935 - 03/31/1935 (Rough-House's bandaged eyes)
  • 04/14/1935 - 08/25/1935 "Goldrush to Slither Creek"
  • 09/22/1935 - 10/06/1935 (Wimpy's restaurant)

After three Sunday strips in a row set in Wimpy's new restaurant, the 10/13/1935 strip was set outside the restaurant with no reference to it. For the next couple of months, the Sundays would alternate between being set inside Wimpy's restaurant, or set outside it without referring to it. All these Sundays would be gag-a-day except for the hungry dog story below. This makes Wimpy's restaurant not so much a storyline as a recurring setting. Finally, in the 12/01/1935 Sunday strip, Wimpy's restaurant would go out of business, putting this recurring setting to an end.

  • 11/03/1935 - 11/10/1935 (The hungry dog)
1936
  • 02/02/1936 - 02/16/1936 (The dog on the seat of Wimpy's pants)
  • 02/23/1936 - 04/12/1936 "Swee'Pea and Alice"
Alice helps Swee'Pea and Popeye.
  • 04/26/1936 - 05/03/1936 (Wimpy plucks off his moustache)
  • 08/23/1936 - 08/30/1936 "The Duel"
Wimpy challenges George W. Geezil to a duel.
  • 10/04/1936 - 10/11/1936 (Popeye vs. Curly)
Curly is a recurring rival for Olive's affections.
  • 12/27/1936 - 02/28/1937 "Popeye Fights Kid Mustard"
1937
  • 03/07/1937 - 03/28/1937 "Swee'Pea and the Jar of Jam"
  • 04/04/1937 - 05/09/1937 "Poopdeck and the Civilized Society"
  • 05/16/1937 - 05/30/1937 "Popeye's Underwear - Putter - Oner"
  • 06/20/1937 - 08/08/1937 "Wimpy's Sweetheart, Waneeta"
  • 08/29/1937 - 09/12/1937 (Wimpy befriends Geezil)
  • 09/19/1937 - 12/05/1937 "Swee'Pea's Mother: Taking the Baby Home"
  • 12/19/1937 - 12/26/1937 "Lumberjack Love"
1938
  • 01/02/1938 - 01/09/1938 (Geezil's Cafe)
  • 01/16/1938 - 02/20/1938 "Popeye and the Man from Mars"
Popeye must fight the Martians' champion. This story was started by Segar, but finished by Doc Winner, starting with the 2/13/1938 strip.
  • 09/04/1938 - 10/02/1938 "Popeye Alias Poopdeck"
Poopdeck Pappy passes himself as Popeye in order to trick Olive. Segar had resumed drawing the Sunday strip on 7/17/1938. The 10/02/1938 strip is the final Sunday with Segar's signature.

Post-Segar stories[]

1938

  • 10/30/1938 - 11/13/1938 (Pappy's young sweetie)

1939

  • 01/22/1939 - 02/05/1939 (Wimpy's new trousers)
  • 03/19/1939 - 04/02/1939 (Wimpy's ventriloquism)
  • 04/30/1939 - 05/28/1939 (Popeye vs. a spinach-fed gorilla)
  • 07/02/1939 - 07/09/1939 (The woman who hated sailors)
  • 12/10/1939 - 12/17/1939 (Swee'Pea laughs at Wimpy)

2023

  • 01/01/2023 - 01/29/2023 "Ham and Dregs"

In an effort to prove he is just as good as Popeye, Ham Gravy, accompanied by Castor Oyl, sets out to best Popeye's greatest adversary.

  • 03/26/2023 - 05/14/2023 "The Secret of Goonhalla"
  • 09/24/2023 - 10/29/2023 "Behold, the Hallo-Queen"

2024

  • 03/17/2024 - 05/26/2024 "Enuffs Fisticuffs"

Other strips[]

1933
  • 09/04/1933 - 09/16/1933 "Popeye at the World's Fair"
An extra storyline produced by Segar in addition to his daily and Sunday continuities. Popeye and Wimpy attempt to go to the Chicago World's Fair without taking Olive, but she follows them.

External links[]

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