Wednesday, August 1, 2012

National Cartoonist Society Profile: Frank King

Born in Cashton, Wisconsin back in the days when gasoline was replacing hay as motor fuel. Moved to Tomah, graduated cum nothing and by chance got a job on the Minneapolis Times at seven a week drawing, benday and retouching for four years. Relaxed for two at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Then to the Chicago Examiner where I worked beside T.S. Sullivant. Three years more and a spot opened up on the Chicago Tribune - next to Dean Cornwell and Garrett Price this was 1909. In early 1911 I married Delia Drew from Tomah. Started "Motorcycle Mike and Bobby" and "Make Believe" Sunday in 1919. I started a small square in a half page I was making and called it "Gasoline Alley". It grew and soon took over the half page. Captain Joseph Medill Patterson promoted it to a daily strip and a Sunday page."Gasoline Alley" has had its 40th birthday and Skeezix is 39. In 1951 Bill Perry who had been my assistant for years took the Sunday page off my rounded shoulders. The Kings moved from Glencoe near Chicago to Florida in 1929. Aberrations? Sculping the fiddle, working out visual inventions.

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