Friday, October 21, 2011

Friday Night Fights--Strong To The Finish Style!!

I've gone Golden Age the past few rounds of Friday Night Fights. But this time, we're going beyond Golden Age--we're going comic strip, baby.

As we all know, the first comic books were simply collections of previously published newspaper strips. Even after super-heroes and original material began to appear in the market, some comics conditioned that tradition. Specifically, Magic Comics continued to consist of reprinting of Sunday newspaper strips of Mandrake, Blondie, The Lone Ranger, Henry, Secret Agent X-9, and...

Thimble Theatre Starring Popeye.

Yeah, I'm going Sailor Man here.

For reasons not quite clear, Popeye is fighting some giant dude over the whereabouts of a magic bird that can control the weather. We're at a stalemate, with Popeye holding the guy's arm through a little window.

And then Wimpy shows up...








Well, that's it, right? There's no way Popeye gets out of this, right??

Man, you haven't seen/read enough Popeye, have you?








Toot, Toot!!

Spacebooger yam what he yam.

The wonders of spinach are expounded in Magic Comics #26 (1941), reprinting Thimble Theatre Sunday strips, probably from 1939 or 1940. A medium intensity Google search couldn't turn up any creator credits. Anyone more knowledgeable than I, please provide the information and I will gladly edit the post to reflect that. Plus, apparently this story was made into a Big Little Book, which is cool.

There's no need to tell you to vote for me this week. I mean, c'mon--Popeye. I win. Game over. Still, we must maintain the appearance of democracy, so please flock over to Spacebooger's crib and cast your vote.

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