''Frankie Doodle'', originally called ''The Doodle Family'', is an American

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

that ran from April 23, 1934, to 1938. It was created by

Ben Batsford Ben Batsford (June 5, 1893 - February 11, 1977) was an American cartoonist. He is best known for a celebrity comic based on the puppet duo Mortimer Snerd and Charlie McCarthy. Biography Batsford worked for the Winnipeg Free Press as an editoria ...

. Frankie was the main character even when he lived with his family. However, they were all written out by 1935. Frankie is pursued throughout the strips by Mr. Shady, a disreputable lawyer who is after the fortune to which he is heir, and Mrs. Krule, who runs an

orphanage An orphanage is a Residential education, residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the Childcare, care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parent ...

. He has two Chinese mentors: Ming Low, a cook, and Captain Ku, a

secret agent Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

. He often has adventures in

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

, the

North Woods The Laurentian Mixed Forest Province, also known as the North Woods, is a forested ecoregion in eastern North America. Among others, this terminology has been adopted by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Similar, though not n ...

, and the

Wild West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

. The strip ran in 87 newspapers. The strip was influenced by ''

Little Orphan Annie ''Little Orphan Annie'' is a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and syndicated by the Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and it made its debut on Aug ...

'' - Frankie even has curly red hair. Ben Batsford had previously worked on ''

Little Annie Rooney ''Little Annie Rooney'' is a comic strip about a young orphaned girl who traveled about with her dog, Zero. King Features Syndicate launched the strip on January 10, 1927, not long after it was apparent that the Chicago Tribune Syndicate had sc ...

'', which was also influenced by Little Orphan Annie.

References

1934 comics debuts 1938 comics endings Doodle, Frankie American comic strips Doodle, Frankie Doodle, Frankie Comics set in the United States Doodle, Frankie Drama comics {{comic-strip-stub