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Bob Thaves, Creator of Frank and Ernest

© Susanna McLeod

When fans think of Frank and Ernest, do they picture them as scruffy tramps, sitting on a bench in a windy park? Perhaps as blue-collar workers sitting in front of their television? Maybe they think of the characters as angels conversing with God or as planets, dodging rockets from earth. Or do readers see Frank and Ernest as pre-historic men or futuristic spirits? Any of those incarnations would be correct. Frank and Ernest could be absolutely anything their creator desires.

Bob Thaves has taken an unusual path with his comic panel. He places Frank and Ernest in varying roles, from humans to talking bugs, and anything imaginable between heaven and earth. To get his humourous message across, Frank and Ernest could appear in any shape, almost any form. The changeability of his characters allows Thaves enormous leeway for his dynamic brand of humour, using puns and twists of phrases to get giggles and smiling nods of agreement from the readers.

Frank and Ernest has a slight resemblance to cartoon characters Mutt and Jeff, and to Laurel and Hardy, but the faint similarity stops with stature. Frank, the tall character, and Ernest, the rounder of the two, have distinct personalities that take them boundlessly through time and space.

Bob Thaves is a self-taught cartoonist. He began drawing as a young boy and worked his way up comics chain, starting with high school publications. He snagged his first cartoon sale to a magazine when he was a college student and from there grew into larger markets.

Cartooning was not Bob Thaves' main career goal. He earned a Master's Degree in Psychology from the University of Minnesota and worked for many years as a consulting Industrial Psychologist in California. Throughout his corporate career, he continued drawing and submitting his cartoons with much success. His work has appeared in The Saturday Review and The Saturday Evening Post, among other magazines. Syndication came as a natural progression.

Newspaper Enterprise Association accepted Thaves' first submission of Frank and Ernest for syndication. (It is a rare and wonderful occurrence to be accepted on a first attempt.) Frank and Ernest began as a daily publication on November 11, 1972. The Sunday feature began on April 1, 1973. Bob Thaves was 48 years old.

Eventually, cartooning became Bob's full-time endeavour. His efforts with Frank and Ernest have earned him three Reuben Awards for Best Syndicated Panel from the National Cartoonists Society in 1983, 1984 and 1986. In 1985, he was awarded the H. L. Mencken Award for Best Cartoon from the Free Press Association. He was voted Punster of the Year by the International Save the Pun Foundation in 1990. Frank and Ernest now tickles the funny bones of over 25 million fans and appears in more than 1,300 newspapers world-wide.

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