Introducing a new range of Popeye greetings cards based on popular Comic Art screenprints.
Each pack of greetings cards includes 10 cards of assorted images, chosen from the seven images in my Popeye greetings card range. Each card is blank inside, so you are free to write your message.
Each card is 15cms square, and come with a white envelope and each one individually wrapped in cellophane.
The cards are printed on 300gsm card which is offwhite and textured, so match the look of my screenprints, which are printed on 300gsm off-white textured paper.
My screenprints and greetings cards are based on drawings by the artist who invented Popeye, Elzie Segar, who died in 1938.
Popeye was originally a minor character in a strip syndicated in American newspapers called Thimble Theatre, which started in 1919, with Olive Oyl and her brother Caster Oyl some of the main characters. Popeye first appeared as an incidental character in 1929 and stole the show; the strip was soon named after him. See my Popeye cards here.
Popeye and Olive now have the status of an archetypal couple – they are obviously attracted to each other, but they often fall out and row, often bitterly. Although the characters have been around for nearly 100 years, the way they behave seems quite modern.
By the way, it was only when I started screenprinting the character that I realised that his name refers to the fact that he only has a single eye, the left one. The right eye is always depicted as a sort of asterisk. You can see that here, in this portrait of the sailor in my range.
And spinach – which became an essential part of the Popeye makeup – was not originally part of his setup. The iron-rich leaf first made an appearance in the early 1930s, when he was running away from a bull and accidentally landed in a back garden full of the stuff. He didn’t even know what it was, and had to be told. This is the first time Popeye encounters the vegetable.
©John Reynolds
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