Popeye the Sailor Man is a cartoon fictional character, created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and theatrical and television animated cartoons. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929; Popeye became the strip’s title in later years.
Although Segar’s Thimble Theatre strip was in its tenth year when Popeye made his debut, the sailor quickly became the main focus of the strip and Thimble Theatre soon became one of King Features’ most popular properties during the 1930s. Thimble Theatre was continued after Segar’s death in 1938 by several writers and artists, most notably Segar’s assistant Bud Sagendorf. The strip continues to appear in first-run installments in its Sunday edition, written and drawn by Hy Eisman. The daily strips are reprints of old Sagendorf stories. 
In 1933, Max and Dave Fleischer’s Fleischer Studios adapted the Thimble Theatre characters into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures. These cartoons proved to be among the most popular of the 1930s, and the Fleischers—and later Paramount’s own Famous Studios—continued production through 1957. These cartoon shorts are now owned by Turner Entertainment, a subsidiary of Time Warner, and distributed by sister company Warner Bros. Entertainment.
Over the years, Popeye has also appeared in comic books, television cartoons, arcade and video games, hundreds of advertisements[citation needed] and peripheral products (ranging from spinach to candy cigarettes), and the 1980 live-action film directed by Robert Altman that starred comedian Robin Williams as Popeye.
In 2002, TV Guide ranked Popeye #20 on its “50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time” list.
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UPDATE 04-01-2021
Thimble Theatre – 1953 Sundays
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UPDATE 30-05-2020
Thimble Theater various 1919-1970
Some years have 1 strip and others a few hundred
Thanks to Shea Tennant
Thimble Theatre – 1919
Thimble Theatre – 1920
Thimble Theatre – 1923
Thimble Theatre – 1925
Thimble Theatre – 1926
Thimble Theatre – 1927
Thimble Theatre – 1932
Thimble Theatre – 1933
Thimble Theatre – 1934
Thimble Theatre – 1935
Thimble Theatre – 1936
Thimble Theatre – 1937
Thimble Theatre – 1938
Thimble Theatre – 1939
Thimble Theatre – 1940
Thimble Theatre – 1941
Thimble Theatre – 1942
Thimble Theatre – 1943
Thimble Theatre – 1944
Thimble Theatre – 1945
Thimble Theatre – 1946
Thimble Theatre – 1947
Thimble Theatre – 1948
Thimble Theatre – 1949
Thimble Theatre – 1952
Thimble Theatre – 1953
Thimble Theatre – 1956
Thimble Theatre – 1959
Thimble Theatre – 1960
Thimble Theatre – 1962
Thimble Theatre – 1963
Thimble Theatre – 1965
Thimble Theatre – 1966
Thimble Theatre – 1967
Thimble Theatre – 1968
Thimble Theatre – 1970
Thimble Theatre – Misc Stuff
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6 stories
1932 King of Popilania
1932 The Eighth Sea
1935 Popeye’s Ark
1935 The Sea Hag’s Sister
1936 Popeye’s Poppa
1938 King Swee’pea
Elzie Segar’s “Thimble Theatre” came out in 1919 for the first time, and his characters continue to experience wide popularity even today. Originally the strip did not center around the favorite “Popeye, the Sailor Man”, but rather around the Oyl family. The Oyl’s featured Olive, the well-known romantic interest of Popeye, Castor, her brother, Nana, her mother, and Cole, her father. Eventually, however, the strip’s regular characters became the ones with which we’re most familiar. The strip was remarkable for its ability to mix the fantastic with the absolutely mundane. The location of the strip’s narratives ranged from everyday America to islands in Polynesia. In fact, it was precisely this ability to closely align fantasy and reality that made Segar such a hit with audiences in the Depression, audiences looking for an escape and a laugh.
11 strips 1919
303 strips 1920
26 strips 1926
188 strips 1928
302 strips 1929
52 strips 1932
15 strips 1935
15 strips 1936
18 strips 1937
19 strips 1938
10 strips various
Newspaper Comic Strips 
Could anybody upload the 90’s Bobby London run on the strip?
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Great find this.
I would LOVE to be able to buy these strips legally. The Segar 1928-1930 strips were published by Fantagraphics, buy have out-of-print for years. I was having medical problems at the time the latter volumes were in print. Now, i am really willing and able to buy the last two volumes, only they sell for insane amounts of money on the used market. Volume 5 sells for $1000 new and $300 used.
I have downloaded these(plus SAPPO ones). I STILL want to legally purchase volumes 5 & 6 of the Fantagraphics POPEYE run. But Fantagraphics have no intention of reprinting them. Modern society, huh? “Yeah, I REALLY REALLY WANT to buy the books fair and above aboard, but the publishers blew me off with an abrupt curt e-mail”.
Still trying to find Sundays 1935-1938, like Slither Creek, Kid Mustard, The Duel. Again, I would VERY HAPPILY spend a reasonable amount of money on buying the actual books, but not $300 for a used copy.
And I am far from alone on this. There are long waiting lists at some stores in case a used copy of these books happens to come in.
Again, I legally purchased at normal retail price, Volumes 1-3 of Fantagraphics Popeye. I spent more money than I have on any other book ever in my life, to get a slightly battered “Plunder Island”. I spent full retail price to get the Sunday Press “Pre-Popeye Comics of EC Segar”. But because of personal problems it looks like I’ll never get ‘Wha’s A Jeep’ or ‘My Li’L Swee’Pea’. (And I also spent a lot of money on a used, coffee-stained Volume 10 1935-1937, which covers some of the missing strips from ‘Jeep’ and ‘Swee’Pea’).
A very big thank you to whoever runs this site. (And I admit to feeling kinda bad about downloading this stuff for free.)
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Thanks, you are very welcome. It’s not my intention to ask money for downloading what ever it is, just want to give people like you the chance to enjoy these strips and preserve as much as i can. And i know the feeling, i have for thousands of euros comics and strips, 99% Dutch, and often find some ridiculous prices also at fleamarkets for old comics, which i refuse to pay also.
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Hello. I found a link here..
http://libgen.lc/comics/index.php?s=popeye+bizon&res=25&sorted=0&mask=0&show=0
(Still no luck on getting the actual books I want, as they now change hands for even larger sums than when I first posted here..)
And it now appears that Fantagraphics are presenting a “new slimline” Popeye series, of small, thin books, Volume 1 released later this year.
I think I can safely speak for thousands(at least) of other people when I say..”We don’t want these new “Olive Oyl and her Sweety’-type books. We want reprints of the volumes we never got to buy the first time, at an affordable price.”
Still, at least we can read some of the volumes here. And yes, I downloaded those files, and yes, I still very much want to be able to buy these volumes in their actual print form without having to rob a bank to be able to afford to do so.
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Daniel, were you able to find digital versions of the E.C. Segar Thimble Theatre comics?
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