Talk:Michael ffolkes

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the arts and entertainment work group (assessed as Low-importance).

Comics: Creators / British Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Comics, a collaborative effort to build an encyclopedic guide to comics on Wikipedia. Get involved! If you would like to participate, you can help with the current tasks, visit the notice board, edit the attached article or discuss it at the project's talk page.ComicsWikipedia:WikiProject ComicsTemplate:WikiProject ComicsComics articles

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Related work groups:
/
	This article is supported by Comics creators work group.
	This article is supported by British comics work group.

London Low‑importance

	London portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject London, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of London on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LondonWikipedia:WikiProject LondonTemplate:WikiProject LondonLondon-related articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Spelling of surname

Latest comment: 4 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Is there any evidence that he used the name "Michael ffolkes" as apposed to "Michael Ffolkes"? The retrospective article "Drawn to an age of innocence" in The Telegraph (03 September 2003) renders it "Michael ffolkes", while the British Cartoon Archive renders it "Ffolkes" and the National Portrait Gallery, London, renders it "Michael Ffolkes". Whatever it is, it should be consistent throughout the article. For now, I've change all instances of "ffolkes" to "Ffolkes", except for the new sentence that explains that he signed his cartoons "ffolkes", in all-lowercase print. If it turns out that "Michael Ffolkes" was the most common way he was described, the article should be moved to "Michael Ffolkes" with a redirect at "Michael ffolkes", the opposite of what it is now. — Quicksilver (Hydrargyrum)^{T @} 16:18, 23 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

I agree with the argument for consistency, but I think your decision goes the wrong way – i.e. I think the name should be rendered consistently as "ffolkes". I make the following points:

Court hand alphabet

"ff" is actually an archaic way of indicating a capital "F" in handwriting: this is the rationale behind old families such as the ffolkes baronets using "ff". See e.g. court hand alphabet at right, and Word-initial ff. Strictly speaking, therefore, the choice should be between "ffolkes" and "Folkes" – "Ffolkes" is incorrect, although I accept that examples of that usage can easily be found.
In the present case of the cartoonist, it was an adopted artistic-name, presumably not used in legal or formal contexts. In his work, he invariably signed himself "ffolkes" – as we state in the article and as can be seen in the cartoon reproduced and in multiple other examples online – so that's surely a significant precedent to be followed.
As for third-party sources, Googling produces examples of both versions. Of the reasonably reliable references/external links we cite in the article, the Guardian and the Telegraph (newspapers using professional proofreaders) call him "ffolkes". His autobiography also appears to use "ffolkes" (I haven't seen it, but per the evidence of library catalogues). The National Portrait Gallery and the British Cartoon Archive both call him "Ffolkes", but in both cases, I suspect, because their databases can't cope with a proper name beginning with a lower case letter. (The BCA database record actually seems to be broken: there's a placeholder entry saying "For information on Ffolkes see Brian Davis", but when you click on the link you're just taken back to the database front page.)

In my opinion, the weight of the argument is on the side of "ffolkes", and I'm going to change the article accordingly. I think it should be "ffolkes" even when the name begins a sentence, but I accept this will look odd to some readers, so I will just use pronouns for the two sentences where that applies. GrindtXX (talk) 18:46, 5 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

Also editor of a Science Fiction anthology?

Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

In the ISFDB (not, I agree, a Reliable source), Davis / Ffolkes (the latter thus spelled there) is identified as the Brian Davis who edited the science fiction reprint anthology The Old Masters (New English Library paperback original September 1970): its Preface is bylined G. B. Davis. The same individual (presumably) edited the collection The Best of Murray Leinster (Corgi paperback original December 1976, selection © G. B. Davis.) (I have copies of both books.)

I have seen no positive evidence that this Brian Davis actually was the same individual as the one also known as Michael ffolkes. It may (or may not) be significant that the NEL volume has b/w illustrations "specially drawn for this collection by Terry Diggins", which are not signed. (If this editor Davis was ffolkes, it would seem natural for him to have provided the illustrations: they are not suggestive to me of his usual style, but certainly within his capability if he wanted to conceal the connection and attribute them to "Diggins".)

Can anyone shed further light? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.217.47.60 (talk) 08:23, 22 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Add topic