R&R: A Rebound Relationship with Moon Mullins

Features Jean Marc Ah-Sen | July 28, 2026 Somewhere in the course of my marriage falling apart—before the need to write again returned but after the dimensions of my bed became too oppressive to remain within its confines—I reached for something on my bookshelf that could uplift my spirits. I avoided romance narratives that involved falling in or out of love, or anything that featured macroscopic, earth-shattering stakes for the future of mankind. I wanted to engross myself within a world of comedic lightness, where humour might only occasionally touch on subjects of pressing social significance. I originally discovered the work of American artist Frank Willard through an online auction house catalogue. A cartoonist for the Chicago Herald and King Features Syndicate, some of Willard’s original drawing boards stood a hulking 22 inches long and 16.5 inches wide. Any comic strip being produced in such gargantuan dimensions immediately catches my attention, and it was for this same reason that I grew to adore the works of Rudolph Dirks, Harry Tuthill, and Edwina Dumm. The strip Willard was most known for was Moon Mullins, premiering in June of 1923 and running until Willard’s death in ...