Four Color #25

History

The issue reprints Thimble Theatre newspaper strips from 1935–1937, drawn by E.C. Segar — the creator who had introduced Popeye to the world in the daily King Features strip on January 17, 1929, and who had died in 1938, leaving his assistant Bud Sagendorf to continue the strip. Dell published the Four Color line in partnership with Western Publishing, which handled production and distribution; the comics were sold to King Features Syndicate for the right to reprint Segar's strips. Popeye had made his first Dell comics appearance just a year earlier, in 1941's Large Feature Comic #24, before graduating to Four Color Series I with issue #21 — making #25 his second appearance in that particular series.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Four Color #25 (Series I) is a Popeye issue, published June 1942 by Dell Comics.
• It is the final issue of Four Color Series I, which ran 25 issues from 1939 to 1942; Dell then reset the numbering for Series II.
• The interior content reprints E.C. Segar's Thimble Theatre newspaper strips from 1935–1937, licensed from King Features Syndicate.
• Popeye, Olive Oyl, Wimpy, Eugene the Jeep, the Sea Hag, Swee'pea, and Poopdeck Pappy all appear in the story; however, Bluto appears on the cover but is absent from the interior pages.
• This is Popeye's second appearance in Four Color Series I — his first was in issue #21 of the same series.
• Only issues #19–25 of Series I actually carried the 'Four Color' title on their covers; earlier issues bore only their individual strip titles.
• Popeye would go on to headline eight further issues of Four Color Series II (issues #17, 26, 43, 70, 113, 127, 145, and 168) before Dell launched a dedicated Popeye ongoing series in 1948.
• The later Four Color Popeye issues (#113 onward) switched from strip reprints to all-new original stories authored by Bud Sagendorf, marking a creative shift for the character in comics.

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