John Hardy

A Silver Age creation of Bud Sagendorf — the artist and writer who kept Popeye's world spinning for decades — John Hardy stepped onto the page in 1962's Popeye the Sailor #66, published by Western. His run was brief, spanning just a handful of years and a slim three appearances in the catalog, but he shares those pages with some genuinely beloved funny-paper company: Olive Oyl, Wimpy, Swee'Pea, and the rest of Sagendorf's warmly rendered cast. A minor figure by the numbers, perhaps, but for collectors who love the quieter corners of the Popeye universe, he's a small, authentic piece of that early-'60s charm.