Popeye sketch by Fredonia alumnus delights Communication professor

Not everyone can boast to appearing, side-by-side, with their childhood idol, but Department of Communication Professor Mike Igoe can. That’s him standing next to, well, Popeye.

Not in real life, of course, but in a black and white cartoon sketch created by Fredonia graduate Ken Wheaton that looks every bit like it was plucked out of a vintage Popeye comic book.

“I’ve been a big fan of Popeye since I was a kid,” Mr. Igoe said.

Igoe and Wheaton initially met each other about 20 years ago. That’s when Igoe, an avid comic book collector then working as a consumer reporter for WGRZ Channel 2 News in Buffalo, dropped into the comic book shop where Mr. Wheaton was working. They hooked up again at a large comic book show, where Wheaton, a freelance illustrator based near Rochester, N.Y., was a vendor.

“I hadn’t seen him for most of the time since then, but ran into him and we got reacquainted at a comic book show last year, when he filled me in that he was revisiting his old hobby and teaching at my alma mater,” said Wheaton, who received a B.A. in Communication at Fredonia in 1994. He instantly recognized Igoe, noting that he still had the “presence” of a television reporter.

At the comic book show, Igoe learned that Wheaton has drawn for Popeye comic books, in fact, lots of them. “I’m a big fan of Popeye, so that piqued my interest,” Igoe recalled.

“We talked about the possibility of doing a sketch for me, and he came up with a wonderful sketch that captures the flavor of the old-time Popeye cartoons,” Igoe said. “He ‘Fleischer-ized’ me,” a reference to Max Fleischer, a founder of Fleischer Studios, which churned out more than 100 one-reel Popeye cartoons in the 1930s and early ‘40s.

“All I had to do is reinterpret my impression of him in the proper animated ‘style’ from the era,” Wheaton explained.

Today, that 8-by-11-1/2 sketch of Igoe and Popeye, the wisecracking cartoon sailor who possessed superhuman strength after eating spinach, has found a home in Igoe’s home office.

“It’s a wonderful sketch,” Igoe beamed. “He captured the Fleischer style and captured the flavor of Popeye’s speech. My Facebook friends loved it!”

Having worked on a large body of licensed material over the years, Wheaton is accustomed to adapting his own personal art style to fit whatever the job requires. That Igoe has such a distinctive head of hair and mustache – and Wheaton says he’s never seen him without a tie on or a hair out of place – made it easy.

In the sketch, Igoe, dressed in customary sport coat, vest and striped tie, is clutching an over-sized can of spinach. The lid is opened, and Igoe, sporting a clever grin, is poised to chow down.

The bubble over the wisecracking sailor reads: “Me frien’ Professor Igoe here has an important responsibilicky ta edjamacate all them Fredonia students, so I gave him a big can o’ spinach for lots o’ energy an’ vitalicky!”

Watching the old Popeye cartoons was part of Igoe’s childhood. Back in the 1960s, they were being recycled by television stations, including Channel 10, an Albany television station, that Igoe said ran them and Three Stooges shorts before and after school.

Igoe clearly remembers one particular Popeye cartoon, which combined live action with animation in which a boy throws a can of spinach onto the movie screen to help Popeye gain his strength. He always thought it would be “kind of neat” if he could be in a cartoon adventure like that.

“I was always fascinated that Popeye’s look didn’t fit that of a traditional hero, yet he was always able to beat the bad guys. Usually it was Bluto,” Igoe said. “In the cartoons, there were always imaginative creations of what spinach did to him to help him succeed.”

Wheaton has an impressive set of credentials in the comic book world. He’s worked on comics for Bongo, IDW, DC, Image, Moonstone and Airwave, and also inked stories for Futurama, Bart Simpson Comics, Simpsons Winter Wing Ding, Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror and Radioactive Man.

In his freelance work, Wheaton has created illustrations that have appeared in local and national projects, and his artwork and designs have been used in a series of television ads for clients that include Toyota, McDonald’s and Wegmans.

Like Igoe, Wheaton has been a comic-book fan all his life, and Popeye is his favorite character, too. He drew a special commemorative premium comic celebrating the 80th birthday of the cartoon icon, as well as several stories for IDW’s Popeye series.

Igoe took pride in being able to whistle the Popeye theme song as a youngster and attempted to emulate Popeye chowing down on this magic vegetable. “Unfortunately, I had neither a can nor spinach, so I substituted some lettuce in a glass jar. After eating the ‘spinach’ fast like Popeye does, I threw the glass jar to the ground and of course it broke!

“Needless to say, Mother Igoe was not pleased.”

So, is spinach Igoe’s favorite vegetable?

“Spinach is okay, but I don’t have it that often.”