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.
- Does This Zeitgeist Make Me Look Fat?: An Overdue Appreciation of “Cathy”Across five decades of adulthood, every woman I have ever known was familiar, often intimately, with Cathy Guisewite’s Cathy (1976-2010). Our heroine’s struggles with new and old gender roles, the pressures of fashion and body… Read more: Does This Zeitgeist Make Me Look Fat?: An Overdue Appreciation of “Cathy”
- Great Moments: Dick Tracy and The Death of the BrowThe hallmark of Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy is its surreal villains. Flattop, Pruneface, Mole, Mumbles, et. al. But Gould wasn’t satisfied expressing inner evil with outward disfigurement. He also loved to torture and kill them… Read more: Great Moments: Dick Tracy and The Death of the Brow
- Great Moments: The Rise of Dauntless Durham of the USAIt is hard to convey the weirdness of the situations and solutions Hershfield concocts.
- Shelf Scan: Celebrating Peanuts, Beetle Bailey, Hagar and DonaldBefore Thanksgiving and the shopping season overcomes us, let’s make sure we start our annual Panels & Prose quick takes on recent books for comic strip fans. The pile of new releases is high and… Read more: Shelf Scan: Celebrating Peanuts, Beetle Bailey, Hagar and Donald
- Our Snooty Neighbors: When The Smythes Moved InIf you let the original art designer of The New Yorker loose on the Sunday comics page, then Rea Irvin’s The Smythes is pretty much what you would expect to get. For six years in… Read more: Our Snooty Neighbors: When The Smythes Moved In
Discover more from Panels & Prose
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Panels & Prose 