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CONTACT:
Mary Anne Grimes
212-293-8626
magrimes@unitedmedia.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Frank & Ernest Creator Bob Thaves Dies at
81
NEW YORK, August 4 -- Bob Thaves, creator of the
innovative comic panel Frank & Ernest, died
Tuesday in Torrance, California. He was 81.
For more than three decades, Frank & Ernest
has continued its tradition of innovative humor
that has delighted millions of readers daily since
1972. Frank & Ernest stars Frank and Ernest,
playful punsters with the ability to appear as
any person, place or thing in any time period,
past, present or future. The constant element
is the pair’s “frank and earnest”
iconoclastic attitude. Frank & Ernest is distributed
to more than 1,300 newspapers worldwide by Newspaper
Enterprise Association, and is read by more than
25 million people every day, making it one of
today’s most popular comics. Frank &
Ernest will continue to be produced by Thaves’
son, Tom, who has collaborated with his father
on the strip since 1997.
“Bob Thaves was a wonderful man, a talented
cartoonist, and a comic strip innovator,”
said Lisa Klem Wilson, United Media’s Senior
Vice President and General Manager. “All
of us at United Media enjoyed working with him
and representing his brilliant creation, Frank
& Ernest.”
Thaves was a three-time winner of the National
Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award for Best
Syndicated Panel and was given the Free Press
Association’s Mencken Award for Best Cartoon.
He was voted “Punster of the Year” by
the International Save the Pun Foundation and
just this year was recognized as a Champion of
Creativity by the American Creativity Association.
Creator Bob Thaves was a master of the twisted
phrase and skewed outlook. A true innovator, Thaves’
Frank & Ernest was the first comic panel presented
in a strip format. It was the first to vary the
roles of its characters and the first to use block
lettering. It was also the first to use comic
book-style digital coloring for the Sunday pages.
Frank & Ernest was one of the first comic
strips to have its own Web site, www.frankandernest.com,
which has included several components including
the first 3-D interactive comics based on a comic
strip.
Thaves, who held both bachelors and masters degrees
in psychology from the University of Minnesota,
began cartooning as a kid and never stopped. He
created Frank & Ernest while working as a
consultant in industrial psychology in California.
Thaves is survived by his wife of 52 years, Katie,
of Manhattan Beach, Calif.; son Tom; daughter
Sara; and son-in-law Michael van Eckhardt.
Newspaper Enterprise Association and United Feature
Syndicate are divisions of United Media, the information
and entertainment company that develops and markets
150 comic strips and editorial features worldwide,
including Peanuts, Dilbert, Get Fuzzy, Pearls
Before Swine, Miss Manners, Nat Hentoff, and Sense
& Sensitivity by Harriette Cole. United Media
(www.unitedfeatures.com) is a wholly owned subsidiary
of The E.W. Scripps Company. # # # 080406
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