Frank History
Remembering our beloved cartoonist, Phil Frank (1943-2007).
By: Meghan Saar 11/01/2007
That our mailman didn’t hoard some of the crazy packages we got from Phil Frank always surprised us. Luckily, he was a man with morals, because each envelope was quite a beaut. The mailman stuffing packages into a cactus or that gruesome cowboy scaring our secretary were just a few of the inventive ways Phil addressed his parcels to us, containing his latest batches of “Frank History” cartoons. “I loved the way he would have fun by decorating the envelopes in which he mailed his cartoons with some personal comments about me and True West. They were always something to look forward to in the mail,” says Gus Walker, our former Cartoon Editor. We could envision Phil, laughing out loud at how he was going to pull another one over on us and our mailman. We could see him, a smile creeping into the corners of his mouth, cramped over his desk, inside the artist studio he kept in the pilot house of an 1880’s ferryboat he had restored, which was docked on the Sausalito waterfront in California. Those envelopes are among the greatest treasures in our archives, and we are proud to share a few of them with you. When his wife Susan called to tell us that Phil was retiring due to his condition worsening from his brain tumor, we knew immediately we had to pay homage to Phil. As we huddled together over his cartoons, “Here comes one tough dude” got a huge chuckle out of all of us.
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