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Dirty Frank is a fictional character created by Rob Williams for the 2000 AD comic strip Low Life.

Biography[]

He is a character in the Judge Dredd universe, set in a city of the future where uniformed judges are empowered to arrest, sentence, and execute criminals at the scene of crime. In order to crack down on crime in the city's worst areas, undercover agents are the only option and must blend in perfectly. He speaks of himself in the third person, and often disregards grammatical errors. Due to his "caveman" like appearance, Dirty Frank is often described as "crude", and his sadistic tendencies and racist jokes only serve to bolster that opinion. “Henry Flint is a superb cartoonist, with such a wonderful idiosyncratic style that he is an immensely hard act to follow. Apart from looking at his character designs, I deliberately tried not to study his take on the Lowlife too deeply, as I felt that I would become intimidated by the prospect of following what he had established.”

History[]

Creator Rob Williams talks about the inspiration behind the character:

"Dirty Frank was visually drawn to be a dead ringer of Alan Moore, which was down to Henry – a genius' choice, that. Frank’s tendency of speaking in the third person in a self-aggrandizing manner came from watching Premiership footballers, particularly Tony Adams, being interviewed. It always seemed slightly mad to me."

The character first appeared in 2000 AD #1389 (May 12, 2004), and then in issue #1392, drawn by Henry Flint. Dirty Frank was first featured in the story "Rock and a Hard Place", drawn by Simon Coleby. Coleby fleshed out the character and discussed his creative choices:

"We share a love of ludicrously overwrought, heavy metal too, which certainly surfaced in one of the stories we created. If I recall correctly it was a chat about Rammstein which lead to the decision that Dirty Frank, at his most frenzied moment of metal mayhem, would probably start screaming in German…

Frank is outwardly insane, but I always feel that there is a sternly controlled side of him, the analytical core of the character. ... During my work on Lowlife, I particularly enjoyed working with Frank as it's impossible to push the character too far, and I found that I became comfortable drawing him very quickly. I think that his mannerisms and expressions developed and grew as I continued to draw him. I have no idea why it seemed right to add those "I am 2" children's birthday badges to his coat, for example, but that kind of thing just fell into place as his personality developed on the page.”

Subsequently, Dirty Frank became the lead character in the Low Life series. After Simon Coleby left to work on The Authority, D'Israeli became the character's main artist. D'Israeli discussed the character:

"There's the question of Dirty Frank of course in some ways he's a more complex character to interpret (he has more than one facial expression for a start), but after some playing around I decided to stick pretty closely to Simon Coleby's version. There were two good reasons for this; first, Simon really made the character his own, and I wanted the readership to be drawn straight into his Low Life creation without spending the first couple of episodes adjusting to a new version of the character. Second, all my attempts to change the look of Frank ended up looking like degenerate versions of Ian Culbard."

Appearances[]

  • Mega-City Undercover (160 pages, Rebellion, January 2008, ISBN 978-1-905437-52-8) collects:
    • "Paranoia" (art by Henry Flint, in 2000 AD #1387–1396, 2004)
    • "Rock and a Hard Place" (art by Simon Coleby, in 2000 AD #1425–1428, 2005)
    • "He's Making a List..." (art by Simon Coleby, in 2000 AD Prog 2006, 2005)
    • "Baby Talk" (art by Simon Coleby, in 2000 AD #1521–1524, 2007)
  • Mega-City Undercover volume 2 (144 pages, Rebellion, April 2012, ISBN 978-1-78108-041-2) collects:
    • "Creation" (art by D'Israeli, in 2000 AD #1624–1631, 2009)
    • "Hostile Takeover" (art by D'Israeli, in 2000 AD #1700–1709, 2010)
  • As yet uncollected:
    • "The Deal" (art by D'Israeli, in 2000 AD #1750–1761, 2011)
  • Judge Dredd: Trifecta (174 pages, Rebellion, Auguist 2013, ISBN 978-1-78108-145-7) collects:
    • "Saudade" (art by D'Israeli, in 2000 AD #1805–1811, 2012)
    • "Trifecta" (co-written with Al Ewing and Simon Spurrier, art by Carl Critchlow, in 2000 AD #1812, 2012)
Judge Dredd
Main Characters Judge Dredd - Judge Hershey - Judge Anderson - Judge Beeny - Judge Buell - Galen DeMarco - Dirty Frank - Judge Edgar - Chief Judge Fargo - Judge Francisco - Judge Giant - Judge Goodman - Judge Griffin - Judge Guthrie - Judge Janus - Judge Karyn - Judge McGruder - Judge Niles - Judge Rico - Judge Shenker - Judge Silver - Judge Solomon - Judge Volt - Detective-Judge Armitage - Inspector Shimura - Devlin Waugh - Johnny Woo - Judge Larter - Judge Jack - Judge Agee - Judge Bennett - Judge Castillo - Judge Dekker - Judge Goon - Deputy Cheif Judge Herriman - Judge Kruger - Judge Munn - Judge Perrier - Judge Prager - Judge Minty - Detective-Judge Steel - Detective Judge Trant - Judge Kazan - Chief Judge Ohno - Judge-Inspector Akio Anaba - Judge Marshall Lawson
Recurring Villains Angel Gang - Mean Machine Angel - Elmer Angel - Junior Angel - Link Angel - Judge Bachmann - Oola Blint - President Booth - Judge Cal - Dark Judges - Rico Dredd - Armon Gill - Judge Grice - Morton Judd - Kleggs - Judge Kraken - Mechanismo - Stan Lee - Marty Zpok - PJ Maybe - Nero Narcos - Orlock - Shojun the Warlord - Judge Sinfield - Call-Me-Kenneth - Mr. Moonie - Murd the Oppresor - Owen Krysler - Don Uggie Apelino - Captain Skank - Father Earth - Kazan - Bulgarin - General Blood'n'Guts - Satanus - Satan - Fink Angel - Ratty - Rhode Island Red - Phobia - Nausia - America Jara - Cesare - Judge Mortis - Judge Fear - Judge Death - Judge Fire - Manners - Ramses - Trapper Hag - Sabbat - Wu Yang - Yin Mie - Randolph Whitely - Judge Choke - Judge Sleep - Judge Sludge - Judge Burroghs - Judge Fistula - Judge Skinner - Judge Stigmata - The Seven Samurai - Rex Peters - Slocum - Kenny Who? - Nosferatu - Grampus - Heavy Metal Kid - Ratty - Elvis - The Warlords - DeGaulle - The Joker - The Scarecrow - The Riddler - Arnold Wesker - Lobo - Judge Kurten - Pink Eyes - Aimee Nixon - Mr. Bones - Effil Drago San - Bella Bagley - Dune Sharks - Xenomorphs - Ueno Hama - Raptaurs - The Explosive Man - Judge Sherman - Ankhhor - President Clinton Box - Pamelina Oswin
Other Characters Chopper - Vienna Dredd - Fergee - Yassa Povey - Jacob Sardini - Walter the Wobot - Henry Ford - Spikes Harvey Rotten - Tweak - Tony Tubbs - Otto Sump - Mrs. Gunderson - Sensitive Klegg - Jack Point - Maria - Benneet Beeny - Grunwalder - Old Joe Blind - Max Normal - Toots Milloy - Mr. Harke - Mr. Burr - Jim Grubb - Dave the Orangutan - Nimrod - The Creep - Johnny Alpha - Wulf Sternhammer - The Fargo Clan - Randy Fargo - Jubal Fargo - Hocus Ritter - Batman - Harry Henson
Storylines America - The Apocalypse War - Block Mania - City of the Damned - The Cursed Earth - Day of Chaos - Democracy - The Doomsday Scenario - The Hunting Party - The Judge Child - Judgement Day - Mechanismo - Mutants - Necropolis - Origins - Oz - The Pit - The Robot Wars - Tour of Duty Trifecta - Wilderlands
Crossovers Judge Dredd vs. Aliens - Judgement on Gotham - Predator vs. Judge Dredd - Mars Attacks Judge Dredd
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