Popeye and “One Piece”: Two Tattoos, One Idea

Take your pick:

A.) Classic Golden Age American cartoon character tattoo

or

B.) Popular contemporary anime character tattoo

In our current age of cultural remix and reuse, cartoon characters like Popeye and One Piece’s Monkey D. Luffy are more alike than dissimilar, their iconic design qualities detached from their original animated context to serve as raw material for gimmicky and interchangeable graphic concepts. The question every artist must ask themselves today is whether they want to be the one who creates the icon or the one who remixes the icon.