Artwork from the Sunday Page of January 24, 1926 (Courtesy of Bernard Mahé/Galerie Du 9Ème Art)
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Artwork from the Sunday page of January 24, 1926 (Courtesy of Bernard Mahé/Galerie du 9ème Art) A Segar Family Album CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Segar as an infant (c. 1897); Segar’s daughter, Marie, on the family’s first Christmas in California (1925); a self-caricature by Segar from a card for his wife (an early study for Popeye?); Segar with his parents and son, Tom, in Santa Monica (1930). From the collection of George Michalski Loops, Gooks, and Desert Madness: The pre-Popeye life of E.C. Segar By PAUL C. TUMEY POPEYE THE SAILOR ENTERED THE WORLD inspiration for Pop- his merchandising failing to put across the strip’s gags. in the winter of 1928, on a day when E.C. eye was a pugnacious, and advertising inter- Shortly after he started the Sunday Chaplin Segar almost didn’t go to work. His wife pipe-smoking Polish ests. Segar credited comic, Segar contributed additional Sunday begged him to stay home due to a bad cold. man named Rocky Outcault with getting work for the Herald’s syndicated Sunday Wanting to keep ahead on his workload, Fiegle, who worked him a job at the Chi- magazine, including comics, spot cartoons, Segar dragged himself to his studio in down- part-time at a saloon cago Herald. and even a few artistically ambitious story town Santa Monica, cartooned a hilariously in Chester. A few months earlier, illustrations. The comics included original ugly one-eyed man in a sailor suit and—as Reportedly, the young the Herald had lost Segar creations: The Mistakes of Mr. Muddle Popeye might put it—hiskory was made. Segar sent cartoons its star cartoonist, and the Rube Goldberg imitation, And They The pop culture icon’s entrance happened in to a local paper with Stewart Carothers. Get By With It. a day, but it was preceded by a dozen years of a note: “Please pub- Creator of the li- When the Sunday page for Charlie Chaplin’s hard work by Segar to develop his singular lish my cartoons on censed Charlie Chap- Comic Capers ended, Segar replaced it with visual style and master the art of unfurling account of I have an lin’s Comic Capers, Barry the Boob (enlisting Rube Goldberg’s an extended serial comic narrative. uncle working in your the gifted young car- pet word), which ran from September 1917 Elzie Crisler Segar was born December 8, press room.” He also toonist was visiting to April 1918. Barry is an inept soldier in the 1894, on a farm located on the outskirts of sent cartoons to Life friends late at night United States Army. Overall, Segar’s work Chester, Illinois, a small town with a popula- magazine. Segar re- when he tragically showed little growth. tion of about 850. Later, his family moved to ceived only rejections, fell out a fourth-story In the fall of 1916, Segar was courting Myr- the heart of the community, into a house at but he persisted. To window of Chicago’s tle Johnson, an attractive young daughter of the end of Harrison Street, just two blocks gain the skills he De Jonghe Hotel. Norwegian immigrants. Segar drew sweet, from the Mississippi River, next to a long needed to make it as The paper tried out a awkward cartoons for her, signing them flight of public steps that led up from the a newspaper cartoon- couple of cartoonists “Dick.” In one such cartoon, Segar drew a river bank. Segar was the youngest of eight ist, Segar enrolled in as replacements and grotesque, squint-eyed child (a possible Pop- children. Since his brothers and sisters were the W.L. Evans Cor- ELZIE CRISLER SEGAR (1928) then hired Segar to eye prototype) saying, “Who’s your baby?” older half-siblings, Segar’s upbringing was respondence Course A photograph from the trade magazine take it over. He had By May 1917, the two were married. Years like that of an only child. His father, Amzi in Cartooning (as What’s in the New York Evening Journal, which gone from projecting later, Segar summed up his time at the Chi- describes the artist as a master in creating Andrews Segar, was first married in 1870. did Chester Gould in the comic strip with a side-splitting wallop. Charlie Chaplin films cago Herald: “Drew Charlie Chaplin’s Comic His second marriage, to Irma Irene Crisler, 1917). For 18 months, to drawing the Little Capers daily and Sunday for two years. It occurred in 1894 in Randolph, Illinois. Elzie he toiled on the lessons late at night after pro- Tramp in a syndicated comic strip. had me going. Hope you don’t remember it. Crisler Segar was their one child and bore jecting the last show at the Opera House. Segar drew the daily version of the Chaplin I had two readers that I know of. They were his mother’s maiden name as his middle In early 1916, having completed the Evans strip from February 28 to July 16, 1916, and my mother and father. Then I got married. moniker. course, Segar packed his pencils and pens produced the Sunday page from March 12 to That made another follower.” Amzi Segar worked as a house painter and and moved about 350 miles north, to Chi- September 16, 1916, at which point the se- In May 1918, William Randolph Hearst paperhanger. On occasion, Segar helped his cago. His 32-year-old half-brother, Norris, ries ended. Segar began his two-year stint bought the Chicago Herald and combined father, who planned for his son to take up lived there, working as a clerk at the Con- on the Chaplin strip by creating his first it with his Chicago Examiner to create the his trade. However, young Elzie moved in gress Hotel. According to at least one ac- original character, Luke the Gook, an em- Chicago Herald and Examiner. Out of a job, a different direction. Segar began to draw count, it was Norris who connected Segar bryonic Wimpy (with a name akin to Alice Segar looked around and found nothing. He when he was ten years old, copying George with Richard F. Outcault (Buster Brown), the Goon). But in this early work, Segar’s wrote a letter to Dorothy Keeley, daughter McManus’s Panhandle Pete. Starting at age at the time one of the most famous cartoon- art is tentative, unpolished and derivative. of the Herald’s owner and a friend to both 12, in 1906, he worked for fifty cents a day ists in America, likely in Chicago to manage His writing is flat and heavy-handed, often Elzie and Myrtle. Segar and Keeley had at the town’s center of entertainment and worked side by side at the paper, and she culture, the Chester Opera House. lent him five dollars to get married. His Segar’s duties included putting up posters letter, presumably illustrated with his car- and drawing showbills to display at the front toons, was composed in vertical format on of the theater. In time, he worked his way a long roll of paper. Keeley showed the spir- into becoming an official projectionist, crank- ited creation to Arthur Brisbane, managing ing the films by hand. So great was his pride editor of the New York Evening Journal and at this accomplishment, he had “M.P.O.” tat- William Randolph Hearst’s right-hand man, tooed on his arm, for “Motion Picture Opera- who was impressed and hired him on at the tor.” Jessie Lee Huffstutler, a young school Hearst-owned Chicago American. teacher who played piano accompaniment to Brisbane ordered the creation of a new silent films at the Chester Opera House— daily series to run exclusively in the Ameri- Segar sometimes joined her on a trap drum can’s entertainment section, in the same set—recalled Segar drew cartoons on slides “film strip” format as his letter to Doro- shown on the screen during reel changes. thy Keeley. Brisbane gave Segar the strip’s “For one such slide he used a local young title: Looping the Loop, “the Loop” being man knocking on the door, calling on his Chicago’s downtown business and enter- girlfriend. Of course, everyone knew who the tainment district ringed by an elevated young man was because he made the face to train. Brisbane directed Segar to “Go out look just like him.” Huffstutler remembered around and get some ideas and make the the young Segar as “shy, very quiet and frail. one column as long as you want.” The re- His eyes were large but very soft and I could sult was a long, skinny cartoon column, see kindness in them.” different every day, promoting and lam- Segar’s employer at the theater was Bill pooning the new features at their host the- Schuchert, a sleepy-eyed, portly man with ater. It proved to be the best possible outlet a mustache and a well-known love for ham- for Segar, allowing him the freedom to de- burgers. J. William Schuchert was likely velop into a highly original humor cartoon- a partial inspiration for Thimble Theatre’s ist, something not unnoticed by his boss. J. Wellington Wimpy. According to Huffs- Segar’s editor at the American, Bill Curley, tutler, Segar modeled other characters on convinced the head office in New York to some of Chester’s more colorful inhabitants. take the promising young cartoonist into Dora Paskel, the wife of the general store the Hearst cartoonist stable. Curley put owner, could have served as the inspiration An illustration for the Chicago Herald Sunday Fiction Magazine story, Looting the Ventura.