082407-800X239-Farley
San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist Phil Frank creator of FARLEY died this week at age 64. He had announced his retirement due to illness only a few days before.

Frank, a longtime resident of Sausalito, was 64 and had suffered from a brain tumor for months.

His alter ego was a newspaper reporter and sometime park ranger named Farley, the central character in his Farley comic strip that he once described as “really a horizontal column, documenting the life and times of the characters in the Bay Area.” It was the only local comic strip in the country.

Frank also combined with writer Joe Troise to produce Elderberries, a syndicated daily strip about life in a retirement home.