Popeye is sailing back up Sixth Avenue. King Features and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade said the spinach-eating sailor will appear in the 100th parade for the first time in about 60 years, Comics Beat reports, sharing the All-Stars float with Olive Oyl, Swee’Pea and other pop-culture guests.
Popeye first rode a ship-shaped float in 1939 and last appeared as a balloon in 1968. The new look, per the press materials, merges the 1957 balloon design with his modern strip appearance. King Features president CJ Kettler called the timing an honor that lines up with the parade’s centennial and with Popeye’s own approaching 100th birthday in a few years.
The strip side of the celebration is already rolling. Writer Randy Milholland is running a string of Sunday gags about the family’s road to the parade across the four Sundays before Thanksgiving, with the first installment already in newspapers and on Comics Kingdom.
Anniversary packaging has been a busy comics beat this fall, from Bonelli’s Dylan Dog 40th plans in Lucca to other heritage characters getting fresh public stages. Popeye’s return is less a reboot than a balloon-and-strip victory lap — a reminder that newspaper comics still know how to hijack a national broadcast morning.
For fans who only know the sailor from cartoons or the Robert Altman film, the All-Stars float is the easiest entry point in decades. For strip readers, Milholland’s Sundays are the local warm-up act before the national cameras find the spinach can again.
Thanksgiving morning will tell whether the hybrid 1957-meets-modern design reads cleanly on TV. Until then, the news is simple: after roughly six decades away, Popeye is back in the parade — and the Sunday strips are already walking the family toward the curb. For a character heading toward his own centennial, sharing Macy’s 100th march is about as loud a mainstream cameo as newspaper comics still get.
