Published on June 11th, 2012 | by Ramon Trotman

DRX BAMFORD ARMY VS NAVY RELEASE

BAMFORD WATCH DEPARTMENT ENLISTS ICONIC KING FEATURES CHARACTERS BEETLE BAILEY AND POPEYE

– Bamford Watch Department has recruited two of the most iconic military characters of all time — Beetle Bailey andPopeye the Sailor — to serve as the inspiration for an exclusive Americana and military-themed watch collection.

Through a unique collaboration with King Features Syndicate and fashion tastemaker Darren Romanelli, known for his popular fashion brand Dr. Romanelli (DRx), the world’s laziest private and the mightiest mariner will be integrated on the fronts of the custom-designed watches. The back of each watch will be engraved with the Dr. Romanelli logo and numbered edition.

Each watch comes with a custom comic strip and, through an innovative packaging concept, the collection stays true to the classic properties and celebrates both the Army and Navy.

About Beetle Bailey

Beetle Bailey, originally called Spider, made his comic-strip debut as a college cutup on September 4, 1950 in a mere 12 newspapers and, after six months, King Features had signed up only 25 clients. Despite the fact that the strip is noted as the last strip personally approved by William Randolph Hearst, King Features considered dropping it at the end of Walker’s yearlong contract. However, when Beetle stumbled into an Army recruiting post in 1951 during the Korean War, circulation began to climb dramatically. The comic strip experienced two other notable jumps in circulation: In the early 1950s, when the Tokyo edition of Stars & Stripes dropped the strip because it supposedly engendered lack of respect for officers, the U.S. press had a field day attacking the maneuver and 100 more newspapers enlisted Beetle Bailey. Then, in 1970, when Lt. Jack Flap first marched into Sarge’s office, Beetle Bailey became the first established strip to integrate a black character into a white cast. Stars & Stripes and some Southern newspapers quickly discharged the strip, but 100 other newspapers joined up. And, the client list just kept growing… Today, after more than six decades, Mort Walker’s creation is still one of the most popular comic strips in the world.

A Short History of POPEYE

For a character initially conceived to make only a fleeting appearance in the already established comic strip Thimble Theatrein 1929, Popeye, the pipe-chomping, monocular sailor with an affinity for spinach, wound up having an impact on pop culture that his creator, E.C. (Elzie Crisler) Segar (1894-1938), could never have imagined.

Countless generations of fans worldwide have embraced Popeye since his introduction to the public on Jan. 17, 1929. Introduced as a minor walk-on character, Popeye eventually became the strip’s star. With Popeye came a host of new, offbeat and famous characters, including his “goil,” Olive Oyl; Swee’pea, the “infink” Popeye adopted; J. Wellington Wimpy, the world’s most hamburger-obsessed moocher; and Bluto, Popeye’s combative competitor for Olive Oyl’s distracted affection.

About DRxRomanelli

Dr. Romanelli aka DRx is the notorious Los Angeles-based cultural clothing alchemist. His skills lie in his consummate craft and vision when applying his surgical spirit to the doctoring of what he calls, “personalization customization”. A singular aesthetic vision where his collaborations are a cut and sew approach re-imagining items into an inimitable DRx collectors object. From limited edition clothing to furniture and toys, DRx reconstructs the worldʼs cultural fashion archives with his signature creative prescriptions and has worked with an inspired and diverse range of collaborators, from some of the worldʼs most iconic luxury fashion brands to the most underground boutiques and cutting edge labels.

About Bamford Watch Department

Bamford Watch Department (BWD) is a wholly independent business registered in the UK. BWD has been at the forefront of the trend for customization of watches having first established this trend back in 2003. Its activities include the independent customization of a number of important and desirable sports watch brands.