Popeye: An Illustrated Cultural History, 2d ed.

BLUF: Too much personal history from the author on the subject. Too much tangential information about subjects not directly related to the so-called "cultural history" of the subject. Too much information repeated too many times about the various cartoons and the studios that produced them. Oh and too much about the cartoons and not really enough about providing a full "illustrated cultural history" of the subject.Review:This is supposed to be the illustrated history of Popeye. This should have been titled, "Popeye, a history of his cartoons" for all the history that it gives towards that half of the subject. The author skips over the other half of the history of Popeye with his start as a secondary character in some comic strip and his various comic strip or comic book authors. The author gives a chapter to these gentlemen, but barely talks about some of the classic story lines that were created here that would see recreation later in the films and cartoons. After a chapter of "...and this comic artist was born here and took over from this other one on his retirement..." sort of information. The book begins to get into some serious detail and starts to tread into information overload as if all of a sudden the author found his muse with the cartoon version of the sailor.Which must have been the moving pictures from the Fleischer Cartoons to the Robert Altman movie and a few attempts at revival in the late 80s with the various studios such as Fleischer which then became Famous and then Paramounts low cost cartoons and then Hanna-Barbara's take on the sailor. It is here that there is more details than one can deal with. From ramblings about the various types of afternoon kiddie shows, such as the comments about how every station in the 50s and into the mid 80s had a Bozo the Clown or Uncle Arty, even talking about which stations came out with the concept first. Since that sort of information is tangential to how these shows used the early Fleischer Cartoons and the later Famous and Paramount with minimum licensing fees, it is included but really why is it here for pages and pages instead of just a paragraph or two. There is also way too much personal injection by the author, at least in my opinion, about some of items covered. We will be rolling through the history of the various cartoon studios or the directors given in charge and what they did with the intellectual property, only to be interrupted by a page or two of a "there I was as a 6 yr old little boy when I had a chance to meet a live actor who..." or "but both me and my friends who were watching these shows as kids didn't....." and talking about some moment of the author's personal history with the shows. Which is interesting, but not for a page or more.Even more annoying with the book that is supposed to be an "illustrated history" is that there is a large amount of ads from the magazines or media pushing the kiddie show hours, which as the author admits just recycled the 30s, 40s and on cartoons that were available for purchase. There is limited word space and photographs offered up to the various merchandising throughout the years and even worse is there is limited number of photographs of some of the actors, the artists (comic and cartoon) and even the producers that gave us Popeye. So there is little cultural history and more personal history of the author and his love for Popeye. As I mentioned the author goes into information overload, with not only who all the cartoons and film sub characters were and main cast, but also runs through which cartoons they were in. Then repeats the information except in listing all the plot lines verbatim again in an appendix, of which he already covered in talking about the various studios production values and issues with society changes as Popeye was around. In the end I thought this was going to be an interesting book about a favorite cartoon star of mine, but it was by about the half way point a drag and I really had to push myself to finish it. This book needs a good editor if any other editions come out (and there should be because the author should talk about the reprints by Fantagraphics and IDW of the original strips and the later Bud Sagendorf strips/comic books all of which have come out since 2006), the editor needs to edit some of the details and personal trivia of the author out in exchange for more details on the history of the character and the people involved with him.There is a good genesis of a history book here, but really needs to be worked on again in another edition to be more on target.

As others have observed, the author does appear to be a living encyclopedia on the subject of the spinach-loving sailor. The book is, for the most part, exhaustively researched and leaves nary a stone unturned. There are, however, a few of reasons I have rated it 4 instead of 5 stars.First of all, while no one could reasonably argue Mr. Grandinetti is a Popeye expert, he's hardly an expert writer. His casual writing style unfortunately results in some haphazard organization. An experienced editor would prove invaluable here. Specifically, he's given to going off on tangents while discussing a particular topic. To be fair, such tangents usually are relevant; they simply struck this reader as jarring interruptions to the narrative flow.The author also inserts quite a bit of opinion in with his facts. This often takes the form of "Popeye fans around the world feel that. . ." While many would probably argue that being co-founder of the International Popeye Fan Club means Mr. Grandinetti CAN speak for many, I again found this style of writing distracting.Last and least, for the price tag on this baby, I think some color pictures could have been printed. The black and white ones are many and varied, the majority of them quite rare, so this is a minor gripe.OK, enough complaining. On the plus side, I greatly appreciate having a detailed listing of all the Popeye cartoons from the 30's to the 90's. And while the majority of folks know the character more from the cartoons than E.C. Segar's comic strip, it's gratifying to see a large portion devoted to Popeye's humble ink & paper origins. Certainly, this book was a labor of love. And while I stand by my criticisms listed above, I do feel that this is an essential book for Popeye enthusiasts.

This author is REALLY into Popeye in an almost disturbing way. VERY obsessive. Yet he doesn't say anything much about Popeye's role in the larger culture. He says almost NOTHING about Eugene The Jeep and his possible relationship to the WWII vehicle. He seems not to notice that the female characters are VERY assertive in a time that was rare. No social or cultural comments at all, or very few. But if you want to know who illustrated what or similar trivia, this is for you.

There's a tremendous amount of information about the great sailor man in all his many incarnations in this book. Unfortunately, it's a sloppy, undigested mess penned by a enthusiastic fan with no real sense of how to write a book or what a reader might want to read.

An interesting history of Popeye. He is one of those forgotten characters and this book keeps the history alive. You can tell there was much research done

This book is nothing short of genius. A detailed account of the creation of this legendary cartoon character that is still enjoyed by millions. This is the type of documentary that you just can't put down and it answers many, many questions about the history of Popeye the Sailor. Fred Grandinetti has put together an in depth analysis of the old salt and has delivered a classic piece of literature to be enjoyed for generations to come.

Se avessi saputo che si trattava di una riedizione in bianco e nero di una versione a colori di lusso non l'avrei mai acquistato, anche perché era un regalo per un fan sfegatato di Braccio di Ferro che subito si è accorto della cosa, e io ci ho fatto una figura misera.