In early 20th Century theater and film, the “sissy” was the dreaded antithesis of two-fisted pulp hyper-masculinity, at best, and at worst was a stereotypical euphemism for what was unspoken in general culture, homosexuality. Wimpy, the dandyish, appetite-driven counterpoint to Popeye’s principled violence, is of course Popeye’s best tutor for all things “sissy.” To make this sexual dynamic even weirder we have Popeye’s Pappy bewildered by his prancing progeny. It reads like an unintended burlesque of Popeye “coming out”. Per a previous post, These dailies precede Popeye deceiving the underground demons to come up and fight.

It is important to note that this gender-bending sequence was followed immediately by another adventure cycle involving Popeye getting the crap beaten out of him in a land of highly muscled women. And this is all happening right after E.C. Segar’s death in October 1938. The strip was being continued unsigned by assistants for the time being.

• Random Nightmares: Winsor McCay Gets RarebitMarch 30, 2026
  Where do we even start to highlight the wicked strangeness of Winsor McCay’s “Dream of the Rarebit Fiend?” The master comics artist drew over 800 nightmares in the first decade of the 20th Century, and… Read more: Random Nightmares: Winsor McCay Gets Rarebit
• They Had Faces Then: Close-Ups, 50s Photo-Realism and the Psychological TurnMarch 25, 2026
  The turn to photo-realism in the adventure comics after WWII is well-documented and obvious in any review of the major strips. Alex Raymond’s Rip Kirby, Warren Tufts’ Casey Ruggles and Lance, Leonard Starr’s On Stage,… Read more: They Had Faces Then: Close-Ups, 50s Photo-Realism and the Psychological Turn
• Dingbat Calls In the Klan: Herriman’s Bourgeois ObsessiveMarch 20, 2026
  Along with chaos, mayhem and violence, obsessive behavior was a core theme of early newspaper cartooning. Consider the many titular anti-heroes of these years, like Hungry Henrietta, Superstitious Sam, Jingling Johnson, Sammy Sneeze. Or the… Read more: Dingbat Calls In the Klan: Herriman’s Bourgeois Obsessive
• The Timid Soul Toys With FascismMarch 15, 2026
  The authoritarian strain in modern democracies has only heightened since I first posted this bit of cartoon wisdom several years ago. In 1937, H.T. Webster’s Casper Milquetoast (The Timid Soul) responds to Italy’s Benito Mussolini… Read more: The Timid Soul Toys With Fascism
• Chatty Pantomime: Little Tragedies Strikingly Told in Four Words (1903)March 5, 2026
  There were no firm rules for comic artists during that first 10 or 15 years of newspaper strips. Formats, aesthetic conventions, even panel shapes and limits hadn’t been fully established. The medium was still elastic.… Read more: Chatty Pantomime: Little Tragedies Strikingly Told in Four Words (1903)