Frank Willard

Who was Frank Willard?

Frank Henry Willard was a cartoonist best known for his comic strip Moon Mullins which ran from 1923 to 1991. He sometimes went by the nickname Dok Willard.

As a youth, Willard dropped out of several schools. In addition to jobs at county fairs, he worked in a mental institution. In 1909, he moved with his family to Chicago. He went to Union Academy, where he illustrated the Reflector yearbook in 1912. After attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago in 1913, he was a cartoonist with the Chicago Herald, where he drew the Sunday comic strips Tom, Dick and Harry and Mister and Mrs. Pippen/Mrs. Pippin's Husband and a daily comic strip which used various titles. At the Herald, he got to know cartoonists E. C. Segar and Billy DeBeck.