On October 8th, 1916, seven months after his first comic strip debuted in the Chicago Herald, 24-year-old cartoonist Elzie Segar took out a sheet of his employers’ letterhead and wrote and illustrated the following love letter to then-girlfriend, Myrtle Johnson. Three years later, by which point he had married his sweetheart, his third comic strip – Thimble Theatre – appeared for the first time in the New York Journal. Eventually, as a result of the well-received introduction of a certain spinach-swilling sailor to the strip in 1929, Segar’s creation evolved to become Popeye.

Transcript follows. Image courtesy of Rob Stolzer.

Recommended reading: Popeye, Vol. 1: I Yam What I Yam.

Transcript

CHICAGO HERALD

Over 200,000 Daily

GEE!! I WISH MYRT WAS HERE

CHESTER, ILL.

OCT. 8.—16

DEAREST MYRTLE:-

I SURE AM THINKING OF YOU, AND I’M DOGGONE LONESOME. THINK I’LL JUMP OFF THE CLIFF AND END IT ALL. “LOVE SICK EH?”

ALL I GOTTA DO DOWN HERE IS SHAKE HANDS AND TELL ‘EM HOW I MAKE A COMIC.

HOPE YOU’RE WELL. ALSO HOPE YOU’RE THINKING OF ME.

GOO BI

LOTSALOVE

YOUR “LIL” BOOB

DICK