- Date Of Birth: June 16, 1930
- Date Of Death: March 7, 2021
- Occupation: Cartoonist and writer
Benjamin Franklin Thorne (June 16, 1930 – March 7, 2021) was an American comic book artist-writer, best known for the Marvel Comics character Red Sonja.
Thorne was known during the 1970s for attending comic book conventions in his persona as The Wizard judging Red Sonja Lookalike Contests. He was born in Rahway, New Jersey, and as of 2010 lived in Scotch Plains, New Jersey.
Thorne wanted to be known as a master in all aspects of cartooning and illustration. This lifetime pursuit was completed with his humorous Moonshine McJuggs cartoons published in Playboy. He acknowledged that he could not have done all that he had done without the support of Marilyn, his wife of sixty-nine years. Despite the controversial nature of some of his material her support was unwavering. This enabled Thorne to work in every area of cartooning and illustration from Sunday School pamphlets to pornography.
He and Marilyn died on the same day: March 7, 2021. – Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License from Wikipedia.
