Here is a 1919 Thimble Theatre strip long before Popeye first appeared. Yep - that's Olive Oyl. Doesn't the villian remind you somewhat of Dick Dasterdly?
In an earlier strip there was mention of Brutus but he was a child. A mean one though. I'll do some more research on the Thimble Theatre (the spelling for theater a long time back) and see if I can find some more characters from Popeye. Olive Oyl seems to pretty prominent in this strip.
