CROSSOVER MADNESS

Here's a link to my mini-review of MARS ATTACKS POPEYE, which notes that the project revived a substantial number of the regular characters from the E.C. Segar POPEYE comic strip.

Obviously the crossover of the MARS ATTACKS franchise with that of Popeye is the one-shot's main appeal. Yet there's also a more minor crossover in that one of the E.C. Segar characters shown above was not created for the Popeye universe, even when the strip was still called "THIMBLE THEATER." The bearded fellow with the huge schnozz is Professor Wotaschnozzle, and as the late Don Markstein helpfully noted, Wotaschnozzle first appeared as a support-character in a 1932 sequence of Segar's separate SAPPO comic strip. Much as Popeye took over THIMBLE THEATER from its default "star" Castor Oyl, Wotaschnozzle edged out the titular character John Sappo and dominated that strip until it ended in 1938. Then, as Markstein explains, Segar's successor on POPEYE Bud Sagendorf revived O.G. Wotaschnozzle for a back-up series in POPEYE comic books, though in this incarnation Wotaschnozzle got top billing and Sappo was just support-cast. I have no idea if Wotaschnozzle crossed over with any POPEYE characters during his comic-book years, so it's possible that Powell and Beatty authored the first such interaction in this 2013 project.