Robert ‘Buck’ Brown, 71; cartoonist created ‘Granny’ in Playboy

Robert “Buck” Brown, 71, the cartoonist who created Playboy magazine’s infamously naughty “Granny” character, died July 2 in suburban Chicago after suffering a stroke, according to his daughter, Tracy Hill.

Brown, an African American, was a leading artist whose work was filled with social commentary about the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Although he was most famous for his cartoons, Brown also was a noted painter of what he called “soul genre paintings” -- humorous, slice-of-life images.

Brown’s first cartoon, a black-and-white drawing of a boy holding a trumpet, appeared in Playboy in 1962, according to a 1981 biography. The character that became “Granny,” his first color cartoon for the publication, came four years later.

In the decades that followed, the magazine printed more than 600 of his cartoons, including one that appears in the magazine’s August issue. He sold thousands more to other publications, Hill said. Brown’s work also appeared in Ebony, Jet and Esquire magazines.

The Morrison, Tenn., native moved to Chicago as a child and graduated from Englewood High School on the city’s South Side in 1954. Brown began to gain recognition for his artwork during a stint in the Air Force the next year and later at the University of Illinois.