Mon Jun 16, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg

Happy Birthday: Frank Thorne

Master of the Dangerous Curves

Born in 1930, Frank Thorne got his comic book start penciling romance comics for Standard Comics in 1948. He then went on to draw the Perry Mason newspaper strip for King Features and to work on several comic books for Dell, including Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, and The Green Hornet.

In 1975 Thorne went to work for Marvel, drawing the character Red Sonja for Marvel Feature. He created her distinctive look as the beautiful redheaded barbarian in the chainmail bikini, and was the artist when she moved to her own series. In 1978 Thorne left Red Sonja and created his own warrior-woman comic, Ghita of Alizzar.

Since then he has worked for Fantagraphics, Heavy Metal, Comico, National Lampoon, and others, though he is perhaps best known for the Moonshine McJugs comic he created for Playboy Magazine. In 1963 he won the National Cartoonists Society award, and he has also won both an Inkpot and a Playboy Editorial Award.

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