Cylinda Oyl (née Lotts), the wife of Castor Oyl and the mother of Deezil Oyl, is a Thimble Theatre character created by E. C. Segar. First appearing in 1926 as the amnesiac daughter of millionaire I. Caniford Lotts, Cylinda was introduced as Castor's foil and to have the couple engage in humorous domestic situations, sometimes involving others such as Olive Oyl and Ham Gravy. Castor and Cylinda's marriage lasted two years from 1926 to 1928 and was a prominent element in both the dailies and Sunday strips of the time. Their marriage ended in 1928, shortly before the story that introduced Popeye. Unlike other main characters, Cylinda Oyl was drawn by Segar in a more realistic style that highlighted her attractiveness. Also, Segar did provide an explanation for her departure. Two explanations, in fact, one for the dailies and one for the Sunday strips, so completely different and incompatible with each other that they would suggest the dailies and Sundays of Thimble Theatre were essentially two entirely separate continuities.
Absent for nearly a century, she has made a comeback in Popeye's Cartoon Club, Olive & Popeye and the regular Popeye Sunday strips, which show her back together with Castor.
Biography
Cylinda Oyl was originally Cylinda Lotts, the spoiled, attractive, adult daughter of I. Caniford Lotts. She was kidnapped by a gang of crooks, who hit her over the head, causing her amnesia. They kept her hidden in a forest outside of town. She managed to escape her captors when the crook who was supposed to be guarding her was distracted, and wandered into the woods, capable of speech, but with no idea who she was.
The kidnapped, amnesiac young woman
Ham Gravy was squirrel hunting in the woods when he ran into Cylinda. It did not take long for her captors to catch up to her and recapture her, along with capturing Ham Gravy. They bound the two together, and the gang's leader, amused by Ham's long nose, tied said appendage to a lower tree branch, making extra sure Ham could not escape. The gang then got word that Cylinda's father had suffered a mental breakdown and been committed to an asylum, where he would confuse each of the male asylum guards for his daughter (the guards would then just humor him, each pretending to be his daughter). Realizing the father was now in no condition to pay them the ransom they wanted, the gang just chose to leave the woods, abandoning Ham and Cylinda (and Ham's nose) still bound together.
Olive Oyl, worried at how long Ham was gone, asked her brother Castor to go to the woods and find him. Castor found Ham and Cylinda bound together and freed them.
Love and jealousy in the air
Castor brought Ham Gravy and the young woman to the Oyl home, and with the woman still amnesiac, she had nowhere else to go, so Nana Oyl invited her to stay at their place, despite Olive's objections. It soon became obvious that both Castor and Ham were attracted to her. Castor proposed marriage to her several times, with her turning him down each time. Ham began actively courting her while ostensibly dropping by to see Olive, much to Olive's consternation.
Courtship and marriage
Eventually, Olive grew so jealous of the young woman that the latter found it uncomfortable to be under the same roof with her and chose to move out, despite having nowhere to go. Castor bought her a tent to sleep in, and slept in a sleeping bag outside her tent at night to protect her. This increased her affection for him. Soon after, she kissed him, just after shyly telling him she was going to do so, later admitting that she loved him, and when Castor soon after proposed again, this time she said yes. Soon afterwards, she remembered her first name was Cylinda, although she still remembered nothing else. Castor pointed out that gave her the perfect first name to marry into the Oly family, as 'Cylinda Oyl'.
The wedding was held in the Oyl home, despite several interruptions. First, Castor and Cylinda were all dressed up for the wedding in front of his family, before he realized he had forgotten to get a minister. His father Cole Oyl rushed out and got a justice of the peace, an old friend of his, to come to the house and perform the wedding. When the justice asked for the marriage license, Castor realized he had forgotten that too, and rushed out to get one. When he returned with the license, the justice asked if he had the ring. Realizing he also forgot that as well, Castor rushed to a jeweler, but when the jeweler refused to give him a ring on credit, Castor rushed back to the house and begged his father for twenty bucks. With Castor finally getting the ring, the justice raised the standard question of, "Does anyone know of any reason why this marriage should not take place? If so- speak now or forever hold your peace." At that moment, Ham Gravy rushed into the house and declared he knew of a reason: "The groom is a sap!" He was promptly thrown out. Despite all these interruptions, the wedding was performed and Castor and Cylinda were married.
Reunited with her father
Now with a wife to support, Castor got a job as groundskeeper on the estate of Mr. Lotts, who by this time had recovered his sanity and been released from the asylum, but was now depressed over the loss of his still-missing daughter. One day, Castor noticed a photograph of Cylinda in the mansion and asked Mr. Lotts why he had a photo of Castor's wife. Mr. Lotts took this as an insult and had Castor thrown out. But the latter was still employed as groundskeeper and had yet to realize the significance of Cylinda's photo. Castor invited Cylinda to come stay on the grounds while he performed his job, and it was on these grounds that Mr. Lotts found Cylinda. He was overjoyed to be reunited with her, but dismayed to discover that she did not remember him, and disgusted to learn she had married an "ordinary fellow". This was aggravated when Castor promptly quit his job upon realizing who his wife was, and began shamelessly sponging off Lotts' fortune as his son-in-law.
Memory restored, but love lost
Mr. Lotts consulted with some specialists about Cylinda, that told him they could restore the memory of her past self, but she might not remember any of her time as an amnesiac, including her marriage to Castor. This made Lotts all the more eager to allow them to proceed. Their operation worked precisely as they said it would: Cylinda's memory was restored, but only of the time before losing it, with no recollection of her months as an amnesiac. Cylinda took one look at Castor and despised him on sight. On being told she had married him, she recoiled. Lotts had Castor kicked out of the mansion, and he and his daughter openly scorned and shunned him in public. They tried to provoke Castor into hitting her so she would have grounds for divorce, but Castor let them know he could see right through their ploy. Lotts hired a private detective to follow Castor around, hoping to catch him in a compromising position with another woman. This proved easier said then done, since Castor was now so angry and embittered with his marriage that he swore off all women, and fled from the many ones (and at least one man impersonating a woman) Lotts hired to pursue him.
Memory and love restored
Eventually, Castor realized that, despite his anger, he still loved Cylinda. At the same time, Cylinda's full memory was restored of her time as an amnesiac, of Castor's kindness to her, of the love they shared, and of their marriage. They began seeing each other in secret: at Christmas, Castor slipped into the Lotts mansion by mailing himself in a Christmas package he addressed to Cylinda, and she gladly hid him in her room. After the 1927 New Year's Day, they snuck out of Lotts' mansion and moved into their own home together. When Lotts found out, he was furious, but had to begrudgingly accept the fact that Cylinda was back with her husband and would not leave him. He still did what little he could to drive a wedge between the two, offering Cylinda a generous allowance on the condition that she spend none of it on her husband.
Married life
Castor and Cylinda would be married for two years within the strip, from 1926 to 1928. Cylinda made her debut in the Sunday strip in January, 1927, and would be in most Sundays of that year. Her father, Mr. Lotts, made his Sunday debut in March of that year. The stories in that year's Sundays would be the sort of domestic foibles of newlyweds common in comic strips of that time, with Mr. Lotts as a regular, disapproving father-in-law/antagonist to Castor.
By mid-1927, Cylinda and her father had largely replaced Ham Gravy and Olive Oyl as the main characters of the Thimble Theatre strip, alongside Castor. Ham and Olive made their last appearances in the dailies of 1927 in July; they would not be seen again in them until June of the following year. They made their final appearances in the Sunday strips of 1927 in November. Ham would not be seen in Sundays again until January 1929, at the start of the second year of "The Great American Desert Saga", when he would travel to the American Southwest, bump into Castor, and team up with him. Olive would not be seen in Sundays again until March 1930, when Castor and Ham returned home only to discover she was now dating Popeye.
In the dailies, in 1927, Castor went on a hunger strike in protest of Mr. Lotts' allowance condition that Cylinda could not spend any of it on her husband. This only delighted Lotts, who would torment Castor with sumptuous feasts on display for him while he starved. Cylinda eventually talked Castor out of his hunger strike, and he got to enjoy the last laugh as the next time Lotts presented him with a feast on display, Castor just ate it.
Castor proudly displayed to Cylinda and her father his invention of "Nonparkable Chewing Gum", gum that would instantly dissolve into nothing after being taken out of one's mouth, so one would not have to park it. Both Cylinda and her father thought this was crazy, and Lotts was able to convince her to leave Castor and move back in with him. But Cylinda would soon have her doubts about this decision when she learned that wealthy financier Mr. Moregain (whom Cylinda knew was an even richer, better businessman than her father) saw some potential in Castor's invention and backed him. Cylinda quickly decided to return to Castor when she saw him out on a stroll with Moregain's adult daughter (because Moregain had asked Castor to do this), promptly walking up to Castor and Miss Moregain, gently picking up her much-shorter husband, carrying him back to their home, and telling him that from now on he would be going out with nobody else but her.
When Castor's nonparkable gum invention went bust, Cylinda was a bit too distracted to console him, because by that time she was worried that her father was romantically seeing someone who might turn out to be a fortune hunter who would take all his money (and Cylinda's potential inheritance). Upon hearing this, Castor forgot about the failure of his nonparkable gum and became worried too. He soon learned that Lotts was seeing someone who seemed to be tied up with the notorious outlaw Grizzly Bill. Castor hired a private detective who was able to expose that not only was the person Lotts seeing a fortune hunter in league with Grizzly Bill, but that "she" was a female-impersonating con man.
Lotts was so angered and humiliated by this revelation, he cut off his daughter's allowance and ordered her to leave her husband and move back in with him. Cylinda loyally stood by Castor and told her father she would starve first. In desperation, Castor began hocking the furniture in their house. Cylinda offered her pearl necklace for Castor to hock. At first, Castor balked at this, but Cylinda revealed the necklace had been a gift to her from one of her old boyfriends before she met her husband, and Castor quickly changed his tune.
Eventually, Castor saved enough hock money to buy a local radio store dirt-cheap, because its owner was a lunatic. At the same time, Lotts had gotten "bitten by the radio bug" despite knowing nothing about radios, becoming Castor's steadiest customer. (At this time, radio was a new, exciting invention that millions of people were obsessing over, including the idea of picking up broadcast signals from all over the world, which Lotts would waste ample time trying to). Castor gleefully sold Lotts the most worthless junk at high prices, seeing it as payback for all of Lotts' past treatment of him. Cylinda was torn between not wanting to cheat her own father, and enjoying all the spending money she and Castor were now making off him.
End of marriage (dailies)
At the start of 1928, Cylinda's role in the dailies rapidly diminished. Of the first two stories begun there in 1928- Castor buying a newspaper and becoming its editor, and the return of Castor's fighting game cock Blizzard- Cylinda appeared in only one daily strip each (although her father had a large role in the latter story, since one of the chickens Blizzard fought belonged to Lotts). Cylinda continued to have a major role in the Sunday strips, but only for the first two months of the year. In March 1928, "The Great American Desert Saga" would begin in the Sunday strips, seeing Castor travel to the American Southwest without his wife.
In June 1928, the decision was made to write Cylinda and her father out of the strip by ending her marriage to Castor. The plot device that would end it in the dailies was introduced without warning in the June 1 strip. Cylinda and her father both made their final appearance in the dailies in the June 13 strip, less than two weeks later, and Ham Gravy and Olive Oyl made their return to the dailies as regulars shortly afterwards.
In the June 1 strip, Castor would come home only to see a strange man there, studio executive Mr. Flimbo, offering Cylinda thousands of dollars to move to Hollywood to become a movie actress, "and leave that sap husband behind." Cylinda immediately accepted, declaring she had always wanted to be an actress (even though she had never expressed that desire in her entire two years in the strip). Castor tried to forbid it, but she just ignored him. In desperation, Castor turned to his father-in-law, only to find that Mr. Lotts already knew about the deal and fully approved of it since he had always wanted his daughter to be an actress (again, despite no mention of this in the previous years he and his daughter had been in the strip). The next time Flimbo came to their home, Castor asked if he could also get a job at the studio so he could be with his wife. Flimbo offered to "start you in at twenty dollars a week- and you can work your way up. And when you get to be janitor I'll pay you thirty." Castor was too shocked and insulted to reply (given that right from the start Flimbo had urged Cylinda to "leave that sap husband behind," it is highly likely that Flimbo's offer was intentionally insulting to ensure he would not accept it). Finally, Castor tearfully told Cylinda he was leaving her and wished her good luck on her film career. Cylinda, who took the moment to bring up how tired she was of housework, and her eagerness to get her film career started, did not seem to mind.
End of marriage (Sunday strips)
Cylinda appeared in three Sunday strips of "The Great American Desert Saga": the March 2, March 25, and June 10, 1928 strips, in just one panel each (the opening panel in all three cases). In the March 2 strip, Castor tells Cylinda he will be going to the American Southwest to see if he can make a killing on some land deals. Cylinda hopes he will have a fun trip. In the opening panel of the March 25 strip, Cylinda could be seen at home, expressing worry about Castor since she had not heard from him in a while. Her worry was well-founded, as this was the start of a sequence within "The Great American Desert Saga", lasting several months, where Castor was lost in the desert and regularly risked death from starvation, dehydration and animal predators. In the opening panel of the June 10 strip, Cylinda could be seen at home, reading a brief letter from Castor that revealed he had just survived getting lost in the desert (this Sunday strip came out at the same time Cylinda was so eagerly leaving Castor in the dailies, indicative perhaps, that Segar wrote and drew his Sundays ahead of his dailies, so the decision to write Cylinda out had yet to be made while Segar produced this page).
In the Sunday strips of the autumn of 1928, Castor met an attractive young woman. He started getting romantic with her until he remembered at the last second he was married. This led to Castor to being chased around by the girl's outraged father.
In the December 23 strip, Castor realized it had been a while since he had written to his wife, and decided to do some Christmas shopping for her at a local store. There, Castor noticed a radio on display and used it to pick up a broadcast from his hometown's radio station two thousand miles away, just in time to hear the news announcement that, "wife of Castor Oyl gets divorce on grounds of desertion", which shocked and angered him.
Return
On July 21, 2019, in what was probably her first appearance in over 90 years, Cylinda briefly returned in the online-only comic strip Popeye's Cartoon Club, where she is shown at an Oyl family reunion, standing next to Castor. This suggests that some time after her last appearance, she and Castor had somehow gotten back together. Less than a year later in Popeye's Cartoon Club, it was revealed that Deezil Oyl is Castor's daughter, making it likely that Cylinda is her mother.
The above strips were written and illustrated by Randy Milholland. On Sunday, June 5, 2022, Milholland took over as the main writer and artist of the Sunday Popeye comic strips from retiring author Hy Eisman. That first June 5 strip also briefly featured Cylinda having an outdoor birthday party for Deezil along with Castor, Olive, Popeye, and Alice the Goon, marking her first appearance within the strip in almost a century. On August 7 of the same year, Cylinda was also mentioned by name for the first time in nearly a century, when Sutra Oyl noted that Cylinda has a fashion vlog.
In the September 6, 2022 strip of the online-only comic strip Olive & Popeye, it was revealed that sometime after having Deezil, Castor and Cylinda had been talking of separating, but after some therapy, Cylinda chose to rediscover herself away from her dad, and that she and Castor fell for each other all over again. Castor revealed all this to Olive while having lunch with her and Deezil at a restaurant. Cylinda showed up, apologized for being late (having her first speaking part in nearly a century), and shocking Olive with her decidedly Goth apparel. Castor called her affectionately, "my creature of the night," and Deezil explained to Olive that, "Mommy is a bat now!" (finally, definitely confirming that Cylinda is her mother).
In the regular Sunday strip, Cylinda has since been shown running her own boutique shop, Oyl's Well Retro Fashion, and employing Sutra there.
Trivia
- Married into the Oyl family, Cylinda has an oil-based pun for a name, much like her in-laws. In this case, referring to "cylinder oil".
- In the dailies version, Castor and Cylinda were separated, and it was heavily implied to be permanent, but with no explicit mention of divorce (except for Mr. Lotts' mean-spirited quip, "Why don't you sock her on the nose so she can get a divorce?" which Castor will not do). In the Sunday strips, it is explicitly stated they are divorced.
- An interesting aspect of her departure in the dailies from a historical perspective is how much it reflects the gender-based norms and mores of the time. All four characters involved in this brief storyline (Castor, Cylinda, Mr. Lotts, and Mr. Flimbo) just seem to take as an automatic given that, if Cylinda becomes a movie actress, of course that means she will be leaving her husband Castor forever. This reflects the attitude of the time that a wife could only be a housewife and that a career woman could not be a wife. Often in media of the time (and "of the time" would include a few decades later, as in the 1949 film Neptune's Daughter), if a working woman got married, it was the end of her career. This storyline reflects the flip side of that attitude: a wife gets a career and it is the end of her marriage.
- In the 2020s, Cylinda is depicted as dark-skinned, unlike in the 1920s.
External links
