Number E-7 “Popeye and Manufacturing Careers.” Written by Joe Gill with art by Paul Fung. George Wildman cover.

In the early 1970s, Charlton Comics (in conjunction with King Syndicate, and bearing the King banner on the cover) released a series of educational comics for kids on the subject of future careers. As a spokesperson for this series on career guidance, they chose Popeye! Of course any modern Human Resources department would have a problem with his history of gambling and anger issues. There were a total of fifteen E-Series comics featuring Popeye and a host of assorted disciplines, including:

Popeye and Health Careers
Popeye and Environmental Careers
Popeye and Communications and Media Careers
Popeye and Transportation Careers
Popeye and Construction Careers
Popeye and Consumer and Homemaking
Popeye and Manufacturing Careers
Popeye and Hospitality and Recreation Careers
Popeye and Marketing and Distribution Careers
Popeye and Marketing and Office Careers
Popeye and Public Service Careers
Popeye and Personal Service Careers
Popeye and Marine Science Careers
Popeye and Fine Arts and Humanities Careers
Popeye and Agri-Business-Natural Resources Careers

In these comics Popeye abandons of his signature patter and talks like a government-commissioned educational film. And like a dated educational film the series has it’s share of cringe worthy scenes, “Sometimes women are good at this job, too!” In an attempt at racial inclusivity pink-skinned Caucasians are featured with brown-skinned African-Americans, highlighter-yellow-skinned Asians, greenish-gray-skinned sub-continental Indians. This is what “being woke” looked liked in 1972.