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Frank William Huline-Dickens (9 December 1931 – 8 July 2016) was a British cartoonist, best known for his strip Bristow, which ran for 51 years in the Evening Standard and was syndicated internationally.Angus Mcgill, "Frank Dickens Celebrates 10,000 Bristow Strips", Evening Standard, 25 July 1997, p. 22. According to Guinness World Records, Bristow was the longest running daily cartoon strip by a single author. The character Bristow is even one year older than that, as he debuted in Dickens' older series Oddbod in The Sunday Times in 1960. Due to his popularity, he received his own spin-off series soon afterwards. Dickens broke the original record held by Marc Sleen, whose The Adventures of Nero was drawn for 45 years without any assistance. However, even Dickens' record has been broken in his turn by Jim Russell, whose series The Potts ran for 62 years. Dickens received eight awards for "Strip Cartoonist of the Year" from the Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain.
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."Anne Karpf, "More of the same, by George", The Guardian, 24 April 1999.
Since 1966, twelve Bristow compilations in book form have been published: by Constable (1966), Allison & Busby (1970), Abelard-Schuman (1972, 1973, 1974, 1975), Futura (1976), Barrie & Jenkins (1978), Penguin Books (1981), Macmillan (1982), and Beaumont Book Company (Australia, 1977, 1978). "Bristow in Print". The most recent is The Big, Big, Big, Bristow Book (Little, Brown & Company, 2001). The Big Big Big Bristow Page.
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.
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)Alex Hamilton, "A cartoonist rides down a novel road", The Guardian, 1 July 1980, p. 9. 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! Holy Mackerel – It’s My Life! reviewed by Laurence Joyce, Radio Times. 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. Post on his official Facebook page "Frank Dickens, creator of Bristow comic strip – obituary", The Telegraph, 11 July 2016.
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