E. C. Segar

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E.C. Segar

Born Elzie Crisler Segar
December 8, 1894(1894-12-08)
Chester, Illinois
Died October 13, 1938 (aged 43)
Santa Monica, California
Nationality American
Area(s) Artist, writer
Notable works Popeye the Sailor

Elzie Crisler Segar (December 8, 1894 – October 13, 1938) was an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of Popeye, a character who first appeared in 1929 in his newspaper comic strip Thimble Theatre.

Segar was born and raised in Chester, Illinois, a small town near the Mississippi River. The son of a handyman, his earliest work experiences included assisting his father in house painting and paper hanging. Skilled at playing drums, he also provided musical accompaniment to films and vaudeville acts in the local theater, where he was eventually given the job of film projectionist. At age 18, he decided to become a cartoonist. He took a correspondence course in cartooning from W.L. Evans of Cleveland, Ohio.[1] He said that after work he "lit up the oil lamps about midnight and worked on the course until 3am."

Segar moved to Chicago where he met Richard F. Outcault, creator of The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown. Outcault encouraged him and introduced him at the Chicago Herald. On March 12, 1916, the Herald published Segar's first comic, Charlie Chaplin's Comedy Capers, which ran for a little over a year. In 1918, he moved on to William Randolph Hearst's Chicago Evening American where he created Looping the Loop. Segar married Myrtle Johnson that year; they had two children. He died at age 43 after a long illness.

Contents

[edit] Popeye

Main article: Popeye

Evening American Managing editor William Curley thought Segar could succeed in New York, so he sent him to King Features Syndicate, where Segar worked for many years. He began by drawing Thimble Theatre for the New York Journal. The strip made its debut on December 19, 1919, featuring the characters Olive Oyl, Castor Oyl and Horace Hamgravy, whose name was quickly shortened in the strip to simply "Ham Gravy". They were the strip's leads for about a decade. In January 1929, when Castor Oyl needed a mariner to navigate his ship to Dice Island, Castor picked up an old salt down by the docks named Popeye. Popeye's first line in the strip, upon being asked if he was a sailor, was "'Ja think I'm a cowboy?" The character stole the show and became the permanent star. Some of the other notable characters Segar created include J. Wellington Wimpy and Eugene the Jeep.

[edit] The Five-Fifteen/Sappo

E. C. Segar's Sappo (1933)

Segar also created The Five-Fifteen for King Features in 1920; it was retitled Sappo in 1926.

[edit] Pronunciation of his name

Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest it was "SEE-gar".[2] He commonly signed his work simply "Segar" or "E. Segar" above a drawn cigar. (At that time, the word "cigar" was often pronounced "SEE-gar" instead of the more proper "sih-GAR".)

[edit] Death and Legacy

After prolonged illness, Segar died of liver disease at the age of 43.[3] Segar's longtime assistant, Bud Sagendorf, took over the strip and continued it for two years.

In 1971, the National Cartoonists Society created the Elzie Segar Award in his honor. According to the Society's web site, the award "was presented to a person who has made a unique and outstanding contribution to the profession of cartooning." The NCS board of directors chose the first winners, while King Features Syndicate selected recipients in later years. Honorees have included Charles Schulz, Bil Keane, Al Capp, Bill Gallo and Mort Walker. The award was discontinued in 1999.[4]

In 1977, Segar's hometown of Chester, Illinois honored its native son with a park named in his honor. The park is home to a six-foot-tall bronze statue of Popeye, and since 1980 has been the site of the annual Popeye Picnic, a weekend-long event that celebrates the character with a parade, film festival and other activities.[5] In 2006, Chester launched the ambitious "Popeye & Friends Character Trail," which links a series of statues of Segar's characters located throughout town.[6] Each stands on a base inscribed with the names of donors who contributed to its cost, and is unveiled and dedicated during the Popeye Picnic. The 2006 debut sculpture of hamburger-loving Wimpy stands in Gazebo Park. A statue of Olive Oyl, Swee'Pea and the Jeep, located downtown near the Randolph County Courthouse, followed in 2007. In 2008, a Bluto statue was dedicated at the corner of Swanwick and W. Holmes Streets, in front of Buena Vista Bank. The 2009 statue of Castor Oyl and Bernice the Whiffle Hen stands in front of Chester Memorial Hospital. An additional 11 statues will be unveiled at the rate of one per year until 2019, when a bust of Segar at his birthplace will mark the cartoonist's 125th birthday. To keep the slate on schedule, one year will feature two dedications, with the Sea Hag as the "wild card." According to the "Map to the Stars" promo piece released by the town, the schedule continues as follows:

Year Character(s) Location
2010 Poopdeck Pappy Cohen Recreational Complex
2011 Cole and Nana Oyl Chester Public Library
2012 Alice the Goon Cole Memorial Park
2013 Professor Watasnozzle Chester High School
2014 Rough-House Reid's Harvest House Smorgasboard Restaurant, State Street
2015 Popeye's nephews Peepeye, Poopeye, Pipeye and Pupeye Chester Grade School
2016 Chester the Dog Chester Fire Department
2017 King Blozo Municipal Building
2018 Patcheye the Pirate Mississippi Riverfront
2019 Elzie Segar bust Segar's birthplace, Old Plank Road
TBA The Sea Hag Wal-Mart, State Street

A few Chester businesses are named for Popeye characters, including Rough-House Pizza and Sweet Pea's [sic] Restaurant (renamed under new management).[7]

On December 8, 2009 Google honored Segar's 115th birthday with a Google Doodle of Popeye. The doodle used Popeye's body as the 'g', had 'oogl' drawn to resemble Segar's drawing style, and a spinach can as the 'e'; and featured Popeye punching the 'oogl' to get the spinach to fly at him through the air.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/dec/08/ec-segar-popeye-google-doodle
  2. ^ Funk, Charles Earle. What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.
  3. ^ http://www.ncs-glc.com/GLC/ed_black/segar/segar1.html
  4. ^ http://www.reuben.org/ncs/archive/divisions/others.asp
  5. ^ http://www.chesterill.com/index.php?id=41
  6. ^ http://www.chesterill.com/index.php?id=66
  7. ^ http://www.chesterill.com/index.php?id=71

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._C._Segar"