| Bobby London | |
|---|---|
| Born | Robert London (1950-06-29)June 29, 1950 (age 74) New York City, U.S. |
| Area(s) | Cartoonist, Artist |
Notable works | Dirty Duck Merton of the Movement Air Pirates collective Popeye comic strip |
| Spouse(s) | Shary Flenniken (div.; m. c. 1972–1976)[1] |
Robert London (born June 29, 1950) is an Americanunderground comix and mainstreamcomics artist. His style evokes the work of early American cartoonists likeGeorge Herriman andElzie Crisler Segar.
As a child, London was "pen pals" with comedianStan Laurel, who provided critiques on London's youthful cartoons.[2] His first professional cartooning was for the left-wingNational Guardian in the late 1960s. He created his underground newspapercomic stripMerton, in New York in 1969. He also drew cartoons forRat Subterranean News before moving to theWest Coast.[2]
The nucleus of theAir Pirates collective began to form in c. 1970 when London metTed Richards at the office of theBerkeley Tribe, an underground newspaper where both were staff cartoonists. (London later drew a highly fictionalized account of their experiences at theTribe in his story "WhyBobby Seale is Not Black" inMerton of the Movement [Last Gasp's "Cocoanut Comix" imprint, Oct. 1972]). In 1970, London and Richards attended theSky River Rock Festival atWashougal, Washington, and metShary Flenniken andDan O'Neill at the media booth,[3] where Flenniken was producing a daily Sky River newsletter on a mimeograph machine. Before the festival was over the four of them produced a four-page tabloid comic,Sky River Funnies, mostly drawn by London.
In early 1971, O'Neill invited Flenniken and Richards, along with London andGary Hallgren, a Seattle cartoonist they had met at the festival, to San Francisco to form the Air Pirates collective.[4] The Air Pirates lived together in a warehouse on Harrison Street in San Francisco,[2] where London and Flenniken began a relationship that turned into a short-lived marriage.[1]
London developed the raunchyDirty Duck strip in 1971.Dirty Duck had been originally published by theLos Angeles Free Press and subsequently inbooks likeAir Pirates Funnies andThe Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. His non-duck work also appeared in underground titles such asMerton of the Movement,Left Field Funnies,Douglas Comics,Facts O' Life Funnies andEl Perfecto Comics. In 1972, London movedDirty Duck to the originalNational Lampoon where it was a regular monthly feature until 1976; it continued to run inPlayboy for over 25 years.
In 1978, London won the JuryYellow Kid Award for Best Artist-Writer, presented atLucca Comics & Games. He contributed illustrations toThe New York Times Op-Ed page from 1976 to 1981, and wrote and drew thePopeye syndicated daily comic strip forKing Features from 1986 to 1992, at which point he was fired for doing anallegory aboutabortion.[5]
In the summer of 2000, London unveiled a family-oriented comic feature forNickelodeon Magazine entitledCody. He wrote and storyboarded episodes ofDexter's Laboratory[6] andThe Powerpuff Girls forCartoon Network in 2003 and 2004,[7] and contributed character designs for King Neptune and Mindy ofThe SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.[8] In 2018, London contributed to the design ofMike Quinn's character Agnes Packard for theMighty Magiswords second season episode, "Pachydermus Packard and the Camp of Fantasy".[9][10]
London returned to comic books for the first time in 30 years with contributions to theGrammy-nominated box set fromRhino Records,Weird Tales ofThe Ramones, in 2005.[6]
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| National | |
