SEA SHANTY FUNNIES™ Comic Strip #3 - 'Cause I'm the Taxman

 

SEA SHANTY FUNNIES™ Blog: Recommendation to Join the Official Popeye Fanclub

I'm guessing that we're all fans of Popeye if you're here at the SEA SHANTY FUNNIES website. As a fellow fan of Popeye, please allow me to give a recommendation for you to join the Official Popeye Fanclub that issues a nifty membership package including a few newsletters each year.

I love the newsletters with the articles that they publish and some of the reprints of the older Bela Zeboly strips you can read.

To join, go to http://www.popeyethesailor.com/club/main.htm for more information. If the link to pay online isn't working, you can mail a check (for $10 in the U.S.) to the Official Popeye Fanclub -  1001 State St. - Chester, Il. 62233, or call Debbie e at 618-826-4567 with a credit card.

It is about time for me to renew my own annual membership!

- Scott

SEA SHANTY FUNNIES™ Comic Strip #2 - Happy Popeye Day on his 96th B-day!

 

SEA SHANTY FUNNIES™ Blog: I've been collecting and reading original newspaper strips this past year from the Doc Winner and Bela Zeboly Years

Last year, I began collecting actual newspaper Sunday comic and daily strips of POPEYE from the years 1938 to 1946 after the premature death of Popeye's creator E.C. Segar in 1938.
 
My interest to discover POPEYE stories during those "lost years" after Segar's death and before Bud Sagendorf took over in the late 1950's led me to look online for actual comic strips because King Features (at least to my knowledge) has never reprinted the entire 1930's through 1950's comic strips. I guess here and there they might have been reprinted in an old comic or two.
 
Previously, I had never even seen or read the POPEYE comic strips with the Tom Sims (writer), Doc Winner (artist), Bill "Bela" Zeboly (artist), and Ralph Stein (writer) circa that twenty-year period between 1938-1958 that led me recently to acquiring some strips (thanks to eBay) from the World War Two era. (Though I have learned the the Official Popeye Fanclub is reprinting some of the storylines in their newsletter).
 
It has been pretty exciting to see and read. I've purchased some portfolios and I've been placing and curating them carefully in those.

 

SEA SHANTY FUNNIES™ Comic Strip #1 - Welcome Aboard, Swabbies!

 

SEA SHANTY FUNNIES™ Blog: Quick Introduction...

As I write this, the time is about four hours or so to midnight. I just wanted to say a quick hello and introduce myself. My name is Scott McCullar and I am the bloke who is presenting SEA SHANTY FUNNIES™ just one minute after midnight when Popeye enters the public domain for fair use. 

I'm a Gen Xer about to turn 54 and I've been a lifelong fan of Popeye the Sailor since I was a wee lad. I grew up on watching all the Popeye cartoons and read the comic strips by E.C. Segar and Bud Sagendorf. I was in third grade when the late Robin Williams portrayed our favorite sailor in the famous film.

Popeye inspired me to draw as a child. I spent many many hours drawing him and Olive Oyl in my school notebooks. I dreamed of one day drawing the Popeye newspaper strip. Well, I figure that this might be as close as I get to achieving that dream. 

For those that don't know me, outside my day job these last 25 years, I've done some freelancing for various comic book publishers including DC Comics where I've either written and/or illustrated some comic books. Currently, I write and illustrate my own independent comic series THRILL SEEKER COMICS with my own self-publishing company Bandito Entertainment. When I was much younger, I went to art school at Illinois State University where I earned my Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree. Working in comics was my dream, but life threw me curve balls these past three decades and so I create comics for fun and myself on my own time. 

SEA SHANTY FUNNIES™ featuring our favorite cast of characters who have entered the public domain from Thimble Theatre after 95 years is a respectful "nod'n wink" to the original comics and cartoons. There won't be any Rated-R slasher style stories. No twisted takes to titillate or cause any controversy. I just want to do my ode to the works of E.C. Segar, Bud Sagendorf, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly, Ralph Stein, Bobby London, and Hy Eisman. As well as the classic animated shorts by Max and Dave Fleischer. Not to mention all the great voice actors and movie actors over the past century. (At some point, perhaps I will do my own little tribute to each here).

Let me also say that I highly recommend you follow the current Popeye strip written and illustrated by Randy Milholland that you can subscribe and read at https://comicskingdom.com/popeye/ . I am a subscriber myself at Comics Kingdom and love Randy's take as well as the classics that are reprinted.

Well, that's it for now. I will occasionally pop up here to post thoughts. I'm not sure how this will go and/or will be received. I'm doing this out of love for the comic. I'm going to attempt to post a strip about once a week as I can. Depends on what is going on in my life and my schedule, but this will be my sandbox to play and hopefully entertain.

Thanks for stopping by here!

Scott McCullar