Born and raised in New York City, Frank Bolle showed an interest in drawing at an early age. His parents, who were both artists, strongly influenced him as a child. After serving in World War II, Bolle attended the Pratt Institute. His professional career in comics began in 1948, when he did western comics for Magazine Enterprises, like 'Tim Holt', 'Redmask' and 'Best of the West'.
He also joined Western Publishing, where he illustrated several Golden Books, such as 'Sherlock Holmes', 'Lone Ranger' and 'Lassie and the Lost Wagon'. He did several science fiction comics, like 'Buck Rogers', 'Flash Gordon' and 'Dr. Solar, Man of the Atom'. At Western, he also illustrated several of 'Grimm's Ghost Stories', 'Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery', 'Ripley's Believe it or Not' and 'Rod Sterling's Twilight Zone'. At the same time, he produced the syndicated Sunday feature 'Children's Tale'.
Alice in Wonderland (1984)
Bolle has also been involved in the production of many classic newspaper comics. He was an assistant on Leonard Starr's 'On Stage' (1956-1961). He later made some features of his own, such as 'Debbie Deere' (1966-1969), 'Alexander Gate' (1970-71) and 'Encyclopedia Brown' (1978-80). He worked on 'Rip Kirby' on several occasions (1970-77, 1987-1994, 1998-99), and he drew Stan Drake's 'The Heart of Juliet Jones' for King Features Syndicate (1984-99), and Martin Branner's 'Winnie Winkle' (1988-2003).
Winnie Winkle (8 March 1995)
At the same time, he did the daily 'Little Orphan Annie' strip, originally created by Harold Gray, and contributions to the 'Gil Thorp' strip in the late 1990s and in 2008. Since 1999, he makes the 'Apartment 3-G' daily strip with Margaret Shulock for King Features. Bolle is president of Connecticut Classic Arts and is a member of the National Cartoonists Society. He is additionally active as a watercolor and portrait painter.
In 2003 he won an Inkpot Award.
Apartment 3-G