Stanley Arthur Franklin

He admired work of the Daily Mirror's Philip Zec which inspired him to become a political cartoonist. However, he failed to gain employment at the Evening Standard, and joined an advertising agency. First employed as cartoonist with the Daily Herald in 1954, he moved on to the Daily Mirror in 1959, succeeding ‘Vicky’ (Victor Weisz). He stayed at the Mirror until 1970, moved to The Sun in 1974, and worked with that paper until 1998. His work included many cartoons of leading politicians and aristocracy, including several prime ministers, and Prince Philip who collected Franklin's sketches of the Royal Family. On 9 March 1988, at the height of the parliamentary debate over the introduction of Section 28 (then Clause 28 of the Local Government Bill), The Sun published an editorial cartoon by Franklin which depicted an angry father stringing up his effeminately caricatured son by a rope from a street lamp post after discovering he was gay. Several MPs raised the cartoon on the floor of the House that very day an incitement to violence and an example of the hostile atmosphere being stoked against gay people. The cartoon drew widespread public disgust and was formally referred to the Press Council for promoting homophobic hatred and violence. He was a founder member of the British Cartoonists' Association, formed in 1966, and was a member of the Fleets Street's old Press Club and a guarantor of the London Press Club. Franklin died in Kingston-upon-Thames in 2004.

• Name — Stanley Arthur Franklin • Born — 30 October 1930 • Birthplace — Bow, London, England • Died — 2 February 2004 • Place of death — Kingston-upon-Thames, England

Stanley Arthur Franklin is recorded as cartoonist and comics artist.