Frank Oscar King (April 9, 1883 – June 24, 1969) was an American cartoonist best known for his comic strip Gasoline Alley. In addition to innovations with color and page design, King introduced real-time continuity in comic strips by showing his characters aging over generations.
Born in Cashton, Wisconsin, King was the older of the two sons of mechanic John J. King and his wife Caroline. When Frank was four years old, he moved with his parents to 1710 Superior Avenue in Tomah, Wisconsin, where they operated their family general store. He started drawing while growing up in Tomah, where he graduated from Tomah High School in 1901.
He entered country fair drawing competitions; a sign he drew for a hotel bootblack earned him only 25 cents, but it was seen by a traveling salesman who learned it had been drawn by the son of one of his customers. The salesman arranged an interview for King with a Minneapolis newspaper editor. King began earning $7 a week at the Minneapolis Times, and during his four years there, he doubled his salary while creating drawings and doing retouching. He also worked as a courtroom sketch artist. On March 17, 1905, he gave a chalk talk at a Minneapolis St. Patrick's Day celebration.
Chicago cartoonists
In 1905-06, he studied art at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. After a spell at an ad agency and a brief time at the Chicago American, he spent three years with the Chicago Examiner, where he worked next to cartoonist T. S. Sullivant. In 1909, King left the Examiner to work at the Chicago Tribune, where, according to his friend, Chicago cartoonist Lew Merrell, he increased his weekly pay 50 cents. At the Tribune he worked alongside Clare Briggs, Dean Cornwell and Garrett Price. In 1910, he began a short-lived daily comic strip, Jonah, a Whale for Trouble, which ran in the Tribune from October 3, 1910 until December 8, 1910. He followed with a Tribune Sunday strip, Young Teddy, which was seen briefly from September 10, 1911 to October 6, 1912. His funny frog Sunday strip, Hi-Hopper, ran from February 1, 1914 until December 27, 1914.
On February 7, 1911, King married Delia Drew, also from Tomah. They were both 28 years old and moved into a series of apartments on the South Side of Chicago. Delia gave birth to a stillborn daughter in 1912, and in 1916, a son, Robert Drew King, was born. It was at this time that the family moved to 533 Madison in Glencoe, a somewhat affluent suburb on Lake Michigan north of Chicago. In 1916, King's salary from the Tribune was $5000. By 1925, this had grown to $22,500, a princely sum that was augmented by royalties from Gasoline Alley books and toys.
The Rectangle
The Rectangle began as a Chicago Tribune page featuring a variety of cartoons and serial features. King's Rectangle Sunday page, usually printed in black-and-white outside the comics section, was a late addition to a page that ran for years in the Tribune. On January 9, 1913, King introduced a bounded rectangle containing themed single-panel gags (beginning with a page headed Hints to Husbandettes), but pages in that format did not appear with any regularity until February 1914. The Rectangle title was finally introduced on December 27, 1914.
King created several recurring strips, including Tough Teddy, The Boy Animal Trainer, Here Comes Motorcycle Mike, Hi Hopper (about a frog) and his first successful full-page comic, Bobby Make-Believe (January 31, 1915 to December 7, 1919). During World War I, King was overseas drawing scenes of the war for publication in American newspapers.
Bobby Make-Believe, Here Comes Motorcycle Mike, Hi Hopper and other pre-Gasoline Alley comic strips by King were reprinted by Sunday Press Books in a hardcover titled: Crazy Quilt by Frank King: Scraps and Panels on the way to Gasoline Alley, Comics from 1909-1919, (2017), ISBN
Gasoline Alley
On Sunday, November 24, 1918, the bottom quadrant of The Rectangle featured Walter Weatherby Wallet and his neighbors Bill, Doc and Avery as they repaired their automobiles in the alley behind their houses. The corner was titled Sunday Morning in Gasoline Alley.
King recalled, "My brother had a car that he kept in the alley with a fellow by the name of Bill Gannon and some others. I'd go to his house on Sunday, and we'd go down the alley and run into somebody else and talk cars. That was the beginning of Gasoline Alley." After King began the daily Gasoline Alley strip (August 24, 1919), The Rectangle appeared sporadically and finally came to an end on February 8, 1920.