Celebrating the Life and Work of E.C. Segar, Creator of Popeye
On December 8th, 1894, Elzie Crisler Segar was born in the tiny town of Chester, Illinois. The youngest of eight children, Segar showed artistic skill from a young age. He spent his teenage years working various jobs (sign painter, house painter, vaudeville musician, movie projectionist), and after enrolling in a correspondence course in cartooning, he began writing and drawing the licensed strip Charlie Chaplin's Comic Capers for the Chicago Herald in 1916. He hopped crosstown to William Hearst's Chicago Evening American in 1918, where he created a new strip called Looping The Loop and contributed illustrations to the sports section.
In the fall of 1919, he relocated to New York City, began working for King Features Syndicate, and on December 19th, launched the strip that would (eventually) bring him immortality: Thimble Theatre.