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Frank W. Bolle (June 23, 1924 – May 12, 2020) was an American comic-strip artist, comic book artist and illustrator, best known as the longtime artist of the newspaper strips Winnie Winkle and The Heart of Juliet Jones; for stints on the comic books Tim Holt and Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom; and as an illustrator for the Boy Scouts of America magazine Boys' Life for 18 years. With an unknown writer, he co-created the masked, Old West comic-book heroine the Black Phantom. Bolle sometimes used the pen name FWB and, at least once, F. L. Blake.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Archives from the original on June 9, 2019. Note: Erroneously gives birth date as June 7, 1924. and it is unclear if the small number of Bolle stories that appear in comics from U.S. Camera, Rural Home, and Green Publishing through 1946 were done during the war or were inventory from before his service. His comics output became regular soon afterward with a "Freddy Freshman" story in Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel Jr. #46 (Feb. 1947) and work in Crown Comics from the publisher McCombs from 1947 to 1948. He did additional work for Fawcett, and signed some of his Lev Gleason Publications comics work FWB.
Bolle himself, in an undated interview, conducted no earlier than 1992, did not mention his prewar work when asked about "the first comic book you worked on":
With an unknown writer, Bolle co-created the masked Old West heroine the Black Phantom in Magazine Enterprises' Western comic Tim Holt #25 (Sept. 1951). Tim Holt #25 at the Grand Comics Database. Through 1954, he also drew the title feature as well as the backup feature "Redmask", then took over the art for the spinoff series Red Mask, drawing issues #42–53 to (July 1954 – May 1956). Additionally, for DC Comics, Bolle drew the cyborg-superhero feature "Robotman" in Detective Comics #167–179 (Jan. 1951 – Jan. 1952).
From 1955 to 1957, Bolle drew Robin Hood stories in ME's Robin Hood and the subsequent, TV series-based The Adventures of Robin Hood. For Marvel Comics' 1950s forerunner, Atlas Comics, he drew supernatural fantasy stories in the anthologies Mystic, Marvel Tales, Strange Tales, Journey into Mystery and other titles in 1956 and 1957. As well by the mid-1950s, Bolle was illustrating juvenile fiction books, including Gene Autry & Champion (1956), and books starring Lassie and the Lone Ranger. He would later draw for the Choose Your Own Adventure children's book series.
From 1957 to 1961, Bolle began his long career in newspaper comic strips, starting as an art assistant, drawing backgrounds, on the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate's daily and Sunday On Stage from 1957 to 1961.
He used the pseudonym F. L. Blake for the dust jacket of the 1963 book Picture Parade of Jewish History. Keeping a hand in comic books, Bolle drew the superhero series Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom #6–19 (Nov. 1963 – April 1967) for Western Publishing's Gold Key Comics imprint, and did a small amount of work for DC Comics, Dell Comics, and Tower Comics.
In 1966, Bolle began a long association with the magazine Boys' Life, drawing numerous comic strips for the glossy monthly publication of the Boy Scouts of America. Through 1981, he drew at different times the strips Bible Stories, Green Bar Bill, Pedro Patrol, Pee Wee Harris, Pool of Fire, Scouts in America, Space Adventures, The Tracy Twins and White Mountains. He did other art as well for the magazine, from 1977 to 1984, and drew an adaptation of Samuel Youd's "The Tripods" as well as an adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's "Between Planets."
From 1965 to 1975, Bolle drew covers for nonfiction paperback books including Baton Twirling, Invitation to Skin and Scuba Diving, Scuba, Spear & Snorkel, Soccer, and Boxing.
His comic-strip work in the 1970s included drawing the daily and Sunday Alexander Gates (1970–1971); the title character, Bolle said, "was an astrologist, I did that for a couple of years", For Universal Press Syndicate, he drew the trip Best Seller Showcase daily (1977) and Sunday (1977–1978), which included Raise the Titanic, based on the Clive Cussler novel; for the same syndicate, he drew Encyclopedia Brown daily and Sunday (1978–1980). He was the uncredited ghost writer on the daily Rip Kirby for King Features Syndicate from 1977 to 1994, and, for one month in 1982, the Sunday Tarzan for United Feature Syndicate. In an undated interview conducted no earlier than 1992, he said, "Today, I work on the Prince Valiant strip — I do some of them. It's funny — I grew up reading, admiring and copying Prince Valiant and today I'm the one penciling them!"
Bolle's last known mainstream penciling and inking for comic books is the cover of Gold Key Comics' Shroud of Mystery #1 (June 1982). He later drew a page for the one-shot benefit comic Strip AIDS U.S.A. (1988) from Last Gasp. He returned to ink the last 31 pages of a 42-page story in Marvel's Captain Marvel vol. 2, #1 (Nov. 1989), over penciler Mark Bright.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Bolle drew and letterer the Sunday and daily Tribune Media Services strip Winnie Winkle, either from 1982–1996 or, he has said, "for 20 years". He performed those same functions on King Features' The Heart of Juliet Jones from 1989–2000, either for both dailies and Sundays or "just dailies". He lettered Tribune's venerable Annie daily and Sunday strips in the 1980s through 1999, contributing, as well, a small amount of art as a ghost artist. Finally, he did ghost art on Tribune Media's Gil Thorp in 1995, 1996 and 2008. Credited, he drew the daily and Sunday North America Syndicate strip Apartment 3-G in 1999. Apartment 3-G official website. Retrieved on December 10, 2015. "By Frank Bolle and Margaret Shulock". Archived from the original on December 10, 2015. He continued with the strip through its finale in November 2015, by which point Bolle was 91.
From 1996 through at least 2009, Bolle did pet illustrations for the Westport Pet Company, as well as commissioned pet portraits, including one that was scheduled to appear in the Walt Disney Pictures movie Old Dogs. He illustrated the 2008 children's book My Cat Merigold by Angelica Joy.
As late as 2004, he was a guest and panelist at San Diego Comic-Con.
Bolle died May 12, 2020, at the age of 95 and was interred at Willowbrook Cemetery in Westport, Connecticut.
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