Popeye Cartoonist Bud Sagendorf introduced Hardtack in a Sunday funnies comic strip on April 23, 1967. (Believe it or not, I have "TWO" copies of this newspaper comic strip clipping in my 1967 portfolio collection!)
Swee'Pea's new rival Hardtack appeared in some other newspaper comics strips and also appeared in a few comic books later in 1967. My first exposure to the character was in a back issue that I found in the comic book POPEYE #86 (June 1967) ... which is the Summer of Love and the same month that The Beatles released their classic SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND album... to give the timeline context. Most of the Popeye comic books of those eras did not have their copyrights renewed and are in the public domain over at Gold Key, King Comics, Whitman, and Charlton Comics (i.e. The Blue Beetle, The Question, etc.) for those that research these type of things. It least that is what my research has found reading some articles by others and looking things up and such for myself.
On the aforementioned comic book cover on issue #86, Hardtack is portrayed trapped inside a birdcage being carried for transportation. (I guess that makes him a cage fighter?). That particular comical child endangerment comic book cover always caught my attention.
I'm still going through old comic strips and comic books of that era that I have purchased and collected, but other than a recent official modern quick appearance not too long ago by the current cartoonist working on the official POPEYE comic strip, it seems to me in my own research (so far) that Hardtack as a character and concept was abandoned by Sagendorf after his use mainly in 1967. Perhaps he was thrown out because he didn't catch on or whatever. Perhaps he was a guest "throwaway" character for a few one and done tales and Sagendorf did all he wanted to do with the character. I dunno. There were also many other "guest characters" that would have a spotlight for a small period of time in Sagendorf's comic strips for a brief stint of about a month or so and then just disappear completely after their initial use back in the Sixties and then would just never come back. I have ideas for a few of these other characters to re-introduce them as I can in future parody humor tales.
Personally, I love the character Hardtack and I think he gives Swee'Pea his own "Brutus-like" young frienemy rival like "Butch" (a la 'Our Gang/Little Rascals') or (to a lesser extent) "Scutt Farkas (a la 'A Christmas Story') as an archetypal adversary. But I think if you've been reading my comic strips lately, you probably figured that out!
I dig the character to play off of Swee'Pea
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