Frank Dickens

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For the British biochemist, see Frank Dickens (biochemist).

Frank Dickens
Born
Frank William Huline-Dickens

(1931-12-09)9 December 1931
Hornsey, London, England
Died8 July 2016(2016-07-08) (aged 84)
Known forCartoons
Notable workBristow

Frank William Huline-Dickens (9 December 1931 – 8 July 2016) was a British cartoonist, best known for his strip

Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain
.

Career

Born in

Sunday Times, where he took his strip "Oddbod". One of the characters in that strip was developed into the bowler-hatted Bristow. The Bristow strip first appeared in regional papers, before being taken up by the Evening Standard on 6 March 1962.[9]

In 1971, Bristow was produced on stage at the ICA, London, starring Freddie Jones, and in 1999 Dickens himself adapted it as a six-part series for BBC Radio 4, featuring Michael Williams, Rodney Bewes and Dora Bryan. Anne Karpf observed in The Guardian: "From cartoon strip to radio series is no longer a large leap, although Frank Dickens's Bristow, about an idle paper-pusher in a large firm, scarcely invites the kind of Superman cartoon radio techniques that have become so familiar. Yet the first in this new Radio 4 series cleverly managed to sound simultaneously knowing and naïf."[10]

Since 1966, twelve Bristow compilations in book form have been published: by

Little, Brown & Company, 2001).[12]

The strip that brought Dickens greatest financial success, through syndication in the United States, was "Albert Herbert Hawkins: The Naughtiest Boy in the World" – which reportedly captures the "essential naughtiness" of its author.[13]

Dickens has also published several children's books, as well as thrillers connected with bicycle racing: A Curl Up and Die Day (Peter Owen Publishers, 1980)[14] and Three Cheers for the Good Guys (Macmillan, 1984).

On 2 February 2012, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a tribute to Frank Dickens called Holy Mackerel – It’s My Life![15] to mark his 80th birthday, narrated by Bernard Cribbins and with contributors who included fellow cartoonists Ralph Steadman and Rick Brookes. The programme was repeated on 13 May 2012.

Dickens died on 8 July 2016 after a long illness.[16][17]

References

  1. ^ Angus Mcgill, "Frank Dickens Celebrates 10,000 Bristow Strips", Evening Standard, 25 July 1997, p. 22.
  2. ^ "Goodbye Bristow". Evening Standard. London. 11 April 2001. Retrieved 5 October 2008.[dead link]
  3. ^ a b "Frank Dickens". Archived from the original on 18 September 2016. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
  4. ^ a b "Marc Sleen". Archived from the original on 22 April 2016. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
  5. ISBN 9788772895802
    .
  6. ^ "Longest running cartoon strip by a single artist". Archived from the original on 27 September 2016. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
  7. ^ "A review of The Great Boffo". Podium Café. 9 August 2015. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
  8. ^ Dickens official website.
  9. ^ Dickens' biography at British Cartoon Archive
  10. ^ Anne Karpf, "More of the same, by George", The Guardian, 24 April 1999.
  11. ^ "Bristow in Print".
  12. ^ The Big Big Big Bristow Page.
  13. ^ "Dickens, Frank". British Cartoon Archive. University of Kent. Archived from the original on 16 July 2007. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
  14. ^ Alex Hamilton, "A cartoonist rides down a novel road", The Guardian, 1 July 1980, p. 9.
  15. ^ Holy Mackerel – It’s My Life! reviewed by Laurence Joyce, Radio Times.
  16. ^ Post on his official Facebook page
  17. ^ "Frank Dickens, creator of Bristow comic strip – obituary", The Telegraph, 11 July 2016.

Further reading

  • Michael Bateman, Funny Way to Earn a Living: A Book of Cartoons and Cartoonists (London: Leslie Frewin, 1966), pp. 55–7.
  • Keith Mackenzie, "Cartoonists and their work, No.3: Dickens", The Artist, August 1969, pp. 122–4.
  • Mark Bryant, Dictionary of Twentieth-Century British Cartoonists and Caricaturists (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 59–60.

External links

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