Take Popeye on Your Summer Vacation – 1938

Back when most people read daily newspapers, deciding what to do with their subscription during their summer vacation was a problem.

One possibility was having a neighbor save the papers. Another choice was to temporarily cancel the paper.

Well, back in 1938, the Lorain Journal offered a creative alternative: having the paper sent to you where you were vacationing. I guess the assumption was that people were going to stay put long enough that they could receive the newspaper in the mail.

That’s the theme of the ad at left, which ran in the Lorain Journal & Times-Herald on July 20, 1938. The Journal was counting on readers not wanting to miss what was going on in the popular Popeye comic strip.

Sadly, the plot line mentioned in the ad – in which Swee’Pea was revealed to be heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Demonia – was the last story by Popeye’s creator, E. C. Segar, who passed away later that year.

Did you know that there’s an official Popeye fan club? Fans of the spinach-munching sailor even hold an annual picnic get together in E. C. Segar’s hometown of Chester, Illinois. It’s coming up in September (details here).

(Popeye has been mentioned on my blog several times, including this post about his 85th birthday.)

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UPDATE (August 12, 2016)
Here's the non-Popeye version of the same ad from a few years later. This version ran in the Lorain Journal on July 8, 1941.