Frank W Bolle 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.
21 Facts About Frank Bolle
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Frank Bolle was born in Italy and immigrated to the United States at age 5 to join his mother in Brooklyn, New York, although Bolle in adulthood said he was born in Brooklyn.
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Frank Bolle grew up in that borough with mother Mary and stepfather Egidio "Louie" Covacich.
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Frank Bolle broke into comics in 1943, drawing backgrounds for Funnies Inc.
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Frank Bolle served in World War II, and it is unclear if the small number of Bolle stories that appear in comics from US Camera, Rural Home, and Green Publishing through 1946 were done during the war or were inventory from before his service.
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Frank Bolle did additional work for Fawcett, and signed some of his Lev Gleason Publications comics work FWB.
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From 1955 to 1957, Frank Bolle drew Robin Hood stories in ME's Robin Hood and the subsequent, TV series-based The Adventures of Robin Hood.
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From 1957 to 1961, Frank 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.
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In 1966, Frank 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.
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Frank Bolle went on to draw new stories published in that magazine and in its sister publication Vampirella in 1970 and 1971, and in 1973 inked roughly a dozen stories for Marvel Comics, including in issues of The Avengers, The Defenders, Sub-Mariner, Marvel Premiere and Marvel Team-Up.
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Frank Bolle's comic-strip work in the 1970s included drawing the daily and Sunday Alexander Gates ; 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 and Sunday, which included Raise the Titanic, based on the Clive Cussler novel; for the same syndicate, he drew Encyclopedia Brown daily and Sunday.
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Frank Bolle was the uncredited ghost artist 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.
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Frank Bolle later drew a page for the one-shot benefit comic Strip AIDS USA from Last Gasp.
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Frank Bolle returned to ink the last 31 pages of a 42-page story in Marvel's Captain Marvel vol.
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Frank Bolle 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.
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Frank Bolle continued with the strip through its finale in November 2015, by which point Bolle was 91.
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From 1996 through at least 2009, Frank 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.
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Frank Bolle illustrated the 2008 children's book My Cat Merigold by Angelica Joy.
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Frank Bolle was one of 10 recipients of the 2003 Inkpot Award.
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Frank Bolle had two children, daughter Laura and son Frank.
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Frank Bolle died May 12,2020, at the age of 95 and was interred at Willowbrook Cemetery in Westport, Connecticut.