Dirty Frank (comics)

Dirty Frank
Publication information
Publisher	Rebellion Developments
First appearance	2000 AD #1389 (May 2004)
Created by	Rob Williams and Henry Flint
In-story information
Team affiliations	Wally Squad

Dirty Frank is a fictional character appearing in the 2000 AD story Low Life, created by Rob Williams and Henry Flint.

He is a Wally Squad Judge in Mega-City One who has been undercover for so long that he appears to have lost his sanity,^[1] a fact somewhat at odds with his erudite speaking manner. He frequently refers to himself in the third person.

Publication history

Rob Williams has talked about the inspiration behind the character:

“

Dirty Frank, visually, was drawn to be a dead ringer for Alan Moore, which was down to Henry - a genius choice, that. Frank’s tendency for speaking in the third person in a self-aggrandising manner came from watching Premiership footballers, particularly Tony Adams, being interviewed. It always seemed slightly mad to me.[2]

”

The character first appeared in 2000 AD #1389 (May 12, 2004), made an appearance in issue 1392, both drawn by Henry Flint but did not feature in a story until "Rock and a Hard Place" drawn by Simon Coleby. Coleby got to flesh the character out and has also discussed some of the creative thinking:

“

We share a love of ludicrously overwrought heavy metal too, which certainly surfaced in one of the stories we created. If I recall correctly it was a chat about Rammstein which lead to the decision that Dirty Frank, at his most frenzied moment of metal mayhem, would probably start screaming in German… ... Frank is outwardly insane but I always felt that there is a sternly controlled, analytical core to the character. .. During my work on Lowlife I particularly enjoyed working with Frank as it's impossible to push the character too far, and I found that I became comfortable drawing him very quickly. I think that his mannerisms and expressions developed and grew as I continued to draw him. I have no idea why it seemed right to add those "I am 2", children's' birthday badges to his coat, for example, but that kind of thing just fell into place as his personality developed on the page.”[1]

”

Subsequently, the Dirty Frank became the main character in the Low Life series and, after Coleby left for to work on The Authority, D'Israeli became the main artist and has talked about his approach to the character:

“

There's the question of Dirty Frank of course; in some ways he's a more complex character to interpret (he has more than one facial expression for a start), but after some playing around I decided to stick pretty closely to Simon Coleby's version. There were two good reasons for this; first, Simon's really made the character his own, and I wanted the readership to be drawn straight into Lowlife: Creation without spending the first couple of episodes adjusting to a new version of the character. Second, all my attempts to change the look of Frank ended up looking like degenerate versions of Ian Culbard.[3]

”

Appearances

• Low Life:
  • Mega-City Undercover (160 pages, Rebellion, January 2008, ISBN 1905437528) collects:
    • "Paranoia" (with Henry Flint, in 2000 AD #1387-1396, 2004)
    • "Rock and a Hard Place" (with Simon Coleby, in 2000 AD #1425-1428, 2005)
    • "He's making a list..." (with Simon Coleby, in 2000 AD Prog 2006, 2005)
    • "Baby Talk" (with Simon Coleby, in 2000 AD #1521-1524, 2007)
  • "Creation" (with D'Israeli, in 2000 AD #1624-1631, 2009)
  • "Hostile Takeover" (with D'Israeli, in 2000 AD #1700-1709, 2010)

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} "Interview: more Mega-City undercover". SFX. March 6, 2008. http://www.sfx.co.uk/2008/03/06/interview_more_mega_city_undercover. Retrieved March 9, 2010. 
2. ^ "Interview: going underground in Mega-City One". SFX. March 2, 2008. http://www.sfx.co.uk/2008/03/02/interview_going_underground_in_mega_city_one/. Retrieved March 11, 2010. 
3. ^ D'Israeli (February 22, 2009). "Lowlife: Creation Part One: Borrowed Plumage". D'Blog of 'Israeli. http://disraeli-demon.blogspot.com/2009/02/lowlife-creation-part-one-borrowed.html. Retrieved March 11, 2010. 

References

• Dirty Frank at the Comic Book DB