When it comes to Pop culture, there are few cartoon icons that embody the bareknuckle bluntness of rock’n’roll rebellion quite like Popeye. In Pop Rocks, Johnny Romeo depicts the beloved spinach-guzzling sailor as a candy-coloured poster boy for overcoming adversity. Romeo touches on the origin stories of the cartoon character’s iconic squint, suggesting that he lost his eye either in a bar fight or during a traumatic event in his youth. Embracing his loss as a badge of honour, Romeo’s Popeye has tattooed his lost eye onto his bulging forearm in an act of defiance that echoes the rough, rock’n’roll charm of Sailor Jerry tattoos. Abandoned as a child and once possibly known as Sue, it is alleged that Popeye’s painful past was the inspiration for Johnny Cash’s song ‘A Boy Named Sue’. Popeye embraces his past, using his eye tattoo as an opportunity to create his own mystical third eye, where regular vision gives way to wisdom and the secrets of the universe are captured in the eye’s creases. Romeo continues this comedic strike through the title Pop Rocks, which references the artist’s own practice as a Pop artist with an eye for Pop culture.
