The Origin of the Fruit/
The Supremacy of the Sucker
Many stories over the centuries have dealt with normal objects made extraordinary by being made of edible ingredients. The first such may have been Grimm's Hansel and Gretel, with the famous candy cottage of the child-eating witch. L. Frank Baum (Oz), Johnny Gruelle (Raggedy Ann) and other early fantasists created whole villages of edible dwellings and people. In recent animated films, the creators of "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" scored a hit with what might be called "edible weather." (It's only fair to mention that the film arose from a book by Judi and Ronald Barrett.) However, as I think back on my fairly impressive (allow me to say) experience with literature and film, I can think of no "edible western" beyond my stories of Fruit Frank, Sucker Sam and their cohorts.
Frank is an oddity, even in this framework. I created him between ages 12-14, as far as I can track it. Had I created him as an adult, I can't imagine what his nature would have been, but it certainly wouldn't have been a generic "fruit." He would have been a specific fruit, at least. Out of nostalgia, but also out of respect for the creative being I was back then, I'm retaining the original character concept. Fruit Frank it is, and shall remain. He was originally a yellow color, though, and that I will be changing to a raspberry red. Speaking overall, the color yellow and I are not friends.
I must confess that Frank's status as my favorite was quickly overturned by the "flash" of outlaw Sucker Sam. I was often fascinated by villains in those days, and Sam's flat-brimmed and -crowned black hat with its silver conchos, along with the rest of his fearsome gunfighter costume, is a dead giveaway--having given birth to him, I thought Sucker Sam was unutterably "cool." The fact that, boiled down, he was a purple lollipop--this didn't dent his coolness at all for me.