NCSNC | Northern CA / Northwest Chapter

The Joy of Phil
By Malcolm Whyte
Founder, Cartoon Art Museum

It was my pleasure to meet Phil Frank shortly after arriving in the Bay Area from Hallmark, and to publish his suite of drawings in San Francisco Scenes [Troubador Press, 1972], his first book. These excellent portraits of city landmarks showed Phil's sure command of pen and brush and his love for his newly adopted home. Phil and I got well acquainted when I edited and published his first collection of Travels With Farley strips (Troubador Press, 1980). Phil threw himself fully into whatever he undertook, whether it was cartooning, rebuilding classic cars, documenting California history, or supporting worthy causes.

As his art progressed, he did more with less than any cartoonist I knew, especially in "Farley" which he drew exclusively for the San Francisco Chronicle. In just a few strokes he set the scene: a couple of people - or bears - sit at a tiny table, a hint of scalloped awning eases over them at left, the cornice of a Victorian house leans in at top right, and a sidewalk bistro in San Francisco's North Beach forms completely in your mind. You could tell he enjoyed drawing so much because he giggled joyously while doing it. Phil had a superb knack of using the particular to comment on the universal. The scores of characters in his strips - real or imaginary, local or legendary - embodied human quirks we recognized in ourselves or others, and chuckled at the reflection. No matter how broadly he lampooned politicians, they loved it because Phil was never mean. Most often profound truth lay behind his gags; sometimes just grand silliness.

Phil and I shared collecting interests. He admired my 1922 "Krazy Kat" Sunday original; I envied his early "Calvin and Hobbs" daily (one of very few in any collection). Before the dominance of Internet auctions, we haunted antique toy shows and flea markets. Phil scooped up unique metal items such as old shop signs and toy cars, like his excellent tin Toonerville Trolley wind-up. I searched for cartoon figures and comic-themed lunch boxes. Phil got a kick out of repeating a W.C. Fieldsian flea market fantasy about me scoring a lunch box from a youngster, and I always joined him in the telling:

"Hey kid, how much for the Popeye lunch box?"
"Twenty-five cents," the youth stammers.
"What? It doesn't even have a Thermos with it!"
"A quarter!" the kid now warming to the battle.
"Come on. Look there's a peanut butter stain inside here!"
"Two-bits", the boy snapped and kicked me in the shin.
Flinging the coin at the rascal, I wrench the prize out of his moist hand and storm down the aisle, leaving the child sobbing into his mother's apron.

Of course this never really happened. I always paid a fair price to child or mom, up to - and including - fifty-cents! But acting out the bit with Phil always left us gasping in gleeful tears.

He was a loving and giving man. When I began the Cartoon Art Museum in 1983, Phil dove right in arranging connections for support among his friends. He continued his support through the past 25 years with fund raising, personal appearance events, and donations of his artwork for sale. Phil has been a good friend to the museum and an indispensible aid to what has become a significant cultural asset to the San Francisco Bay area in particular, and to the cartooning industry in general.

Phil and I and our wives have had thousand of laughs together. Phil's exuberance was irresistible. He kept all of us happy. Now, joined by one of Orwell T. Catt's former nine lives and intrigued by the new characters around him, he uncaps his old Waterman pen and ...I hear his giggle.