Frank Willard

Frank Henry Willard ( born September 21, 1893 in Anna, Illinois; † January 12, 1958 in Los Angeles, California ) was an American cartoonist and author. He is best known as the creator of the comic strip Moon Mullins, which appeared from 1923 to 1991.

Life and work

Willard, who had to leave school, published his first drawings and cartoons in 1914 and received two years later a permanent job at the Chicago Herald, where he worked for the Sunday side first Tom, Dick and Harry, and later Mrs. Pippin 's Husband and The Outta - Luck Club drew. In the latter Joseph Medill Patterson was attentive and asked Willard with creating a series of newspapers Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News. On 19 June 1923, the first Moon Mullins strip, the on September 9 of the same year came the first Sunday page appeared. The strip Moon Mullins, who was very successful, was drawn by Willard until his death in January 1958, and then continued by his assistant Ferd Johnson.