Thursday, November 15, 2012

Classic Popeye!





These vintage reprint comics from IDW Publishing and Yoe Books are easily the best monthly comics I currently buy. That's because they are the only monthly comics I buy. I got off the monthly train several years ago, limiting my purchases to trade reprints of vintage comics and whatnot. The monthly lure was gone, burned out by lifeless comics stories and ever-increasing price points.

These great old Popeye comics by Bud Sagendorf are certainly not lifeless, rather they are a delight of vivid imagery and punchy storytelling. The drawing is at once energetic and attractive, Sagendorf's line is alive not contrived. And at four bucks a pop these comics are relative bargains in the modern comics world, and what I like best is not a page is wasted, all are filled with sundry Popeye doings.

I'm not getting the new adventures of Popeye from IDW (though I will be trying out Martin Powell's crossover between the Sailor Man and the Topps Martians later this  year) as by and large I find the new stuff a bit strained in tone. But these old stories by Sagendorf are full of vigor, something missing from the modern comics world, a splendid sense of joie de vivre.

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