In his 1979 book, ‘Popeye: The First 50 Years,’ Bud Sagendorf, E.C. Segar’s assistant and ‘Popeye’ comic strip heir, writes that he often joined the famed cartoonist, an avid fisherman, at the Santa Monica Pier, where the Midwest transplant brainstormed comic strip ideas. In fact, references to the Santa Monica Rod and Reel Club popped up in a few ‘Popeye’ Sunday strips. ‘In the mid-twenties, Segar had a great desire to paint,’ Sagendorf writes, ‘and one day struck up an acquaintance with a man sketching on the pier. The result of this meeting was: if Segar would lease a studio and equip it with paint materials, the man would give him lessons. An office was quickly rented in a new downtown building at Fourth and Broadway.’ The lessons didn’t last, but Segar kept the work space. ‘This was the office where Popeye was born in 1929,’ Sagendorf writes. So thanks to a chance encounter on the Pier, downtown Santa Monica is where Segar created Popeye the Sailor, which debuted 80 years ago in the January 17, 1929 installment of his ‘Thimble Theater’ strip.
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