'Frank & Ernest' comic a quirky look at life: Appears daily in Sun- Times among 1,300 papers

LOS ANGELES -- Bob Thaves, whose nationally syndicated comic strip"Frank & Ernest" amused newspaper readers for decades with its quirkyobservations on life, has died of respiratory failure. He was 81.

Mr. Thaves died Tuesday at Little Company of Mary Hospital inTorrance, Calif., said his daughter Sara Thaves.

His long-running strip, which appears in the Chicago Sun-Timesclassified section, stars the happy-go-lucky punsters Frank andErnest, who travel the universe and through time -- and sometimeschange shape -- as they comment on everything from science to worldpolitics.

The strip, which was syndicated in 1972, is distributed to 1,300newspapers worldwide by Newspaper Enterprise Association and is readby more than 25 million people a day.

Mr. Thaves' son Tom has collaborated with his father on "Frank &Ernest" since 1997 and will continue to produce it, according to astatement from United Media, whose Newspaper Enterprise Associationsyndicates the strip.

Sara Thaves said her father's curiosity about the world made hiscomic strip unique.

"He was an avid reader. There are books and periodicals andnewspapers stacked up all over the house," she said Wednesday in aphone interview from Manhattan Beach, Calif. "That allowed him to beinterested and engaged with the world in a way that was prettyunique, and it consequently made him a really interesting person tobe around."

Mr. Thaves, who held bachelor's and master's degrees in psychologyfrom the University of Minnesota, began cartooning as a child, andhis work was published in a college humor magazine at the Universityof Minnesota.

He went on to cartoon for various magazines, and he created "Frank& Ernest" while working as an industrial psychology consultant in LosAngeles.

The strip wasn't syndicated until Mr. Thaves was 48, and he didn'tquit his consulting job for several years.

"He knew the chances of being syndicated -- you might as well tryto be a professional athlete," his daughter said. "And then to be assuccessful as he was, it's even more lucky. . . . He did not takethat for granted."

"Frank & Ernest" went on to become one of the most popular comicstrips in the world, as well as one of the most innovative. Accordingto United Media, it was the first newspaper cartoon to run in a stripformat, the first to use block lettering, the first to use comic book-style digital coloring for the Sunday pages and one of the first tohave its own Web site, in 1997.

The Web site features interactive cartoons as a way to attractInternet readers without losing newspaper fans, Sara Thaves said.

Mr. Thaves was a three-time winner of the National CartoonistsSociety's prestigious Reuben Award for best syndicated panel and wonthe Free Press Association's Mencken Award for best cartoon.

Besides his daughter and son, Mr. Thaves is survived by his wifeof 52 years, Katie.

On the Web: Frank & Ernest, www.frankandernest.com