Popeye Pioneers: Graham Place

The long-eyed Popeye animator

• Place started animating Popeye in the 1935 cartoon “Dizzy Divers” (de-facto dir. Willard Bowsky.)

• Even in his earlier cartoons, we can see earmarks of his style down the road.

• He received his first credit on 1937’s “I Likes Babies and Infinks” (de-facto dir. Seymour Kneitel.)

(Dizzy Divers, de-facto dir. Willard Bowsky)

(I Like Babies and Infinks, de-facto dir. Seymour Kneitel)

(Stealin’ Ain’t Honest, de-facto dir. Tom Johnson)

• After moving from unit to unit in the later Fleischer days, Place became a de-facto director in 1943.

• While mostly handling other series like Superman or Little Lulu, he still got to oversee some Popeye films.

• Place’s animation seems rather claustrophobic, with less emphasis on clarity and more on smooth/overlapping/foreshortened action.

• As mentioned in the subtitle of this post, Place tended to draw elongated dot eyes on his characters (maybe the last de-facto director to do that on Popeye consistently.)

(The Marry-Go-Round, de-facto dir. Graham Place)

(Mess Production, de-facto dir. Graham Place)

(The Fistic Mystic, de-facto dir. Graham Place)

Up next: Marty Taras (the Popeye virtuoso)