Talk:Michael ffolkes

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Spelling of surname

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:

"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?

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]