March 12, 2011
You guys know that I love all things Popeye. For example, I wrote about the big Popeye celebration held every year in Chester, Illinois. It features Popeye-related fun. such as hayrides and horseshoe games. What makes them Popeye-related? I don’t know. But Chester Illinois celebration is the one time each year that any extremely flat-chested and plain looking girls are guaranteed the spotlight if they wear ugly red dresses that come down to their ankles. Guys with Olive Oyl fetishes flock there from all over the country to emulate their cartoon heroes and compete to see who sexually assaults Olive first. Isn’t that what every Popeye cartoon comes down to? Popeye and Brutus compete to see who can force Olive Oyl into the sack. It is like an episode of Law and Order: SVU waiting to happen.
I also recently posted a great internet find. In this old comic strip Popeye, in true establishment fashion, beat up a hippie. Does it get more American than that?
Today I feature an installment of another great, but not nearly so old comic strip, Mother Goose and Grimm. Look closely and you may see a familiar face making a cameo appearance.
For other comic strip fun, check out this Rex Morgan strip where the good doctor checks a man’s prostate and this Blondie strip where some questionable language is used.
Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride 
By the way, my Popey reference book (Popeye: An Illustrated History by Fred Grandinetti) points out that Brutus and Bluto are not the same characters despite being almost identical twins. There are small differences in their characterizations.
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Oh yeah? What’s the tell?
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I’m not in the same place as the book but in general there is little physical difference. Mainly the differences are due to the different artists. Before the King Features ‘toons, there was a mistaken belief that they didn’t have the rights to Brutus so they created Bluto. Because they looked alike even the writers got confused and there are cartoons where both names are used. Some old pictures of Brutus are labeled Bluto and vice versa. In terms of character, Brutus is more aggressive. He’ll walk over and stomp Popeye with no provocation whereas Bluto will be a bit more friendly and they’ve even been portrayed as friends (though rivals) on occasion. The confusion got worse when new comic books were published. Some writers wrote Brutus, others used Bluto (and there is one King Features cartoon where Olive very distinctly says “Beruto.”) To 99% of the public there is no difference in the characters and they just figure that one guy has two names.
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