Behind the Cover: Frank Frazetta

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Frank Frazetta (February 9, 1928 – May 10, 2010) was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media. He was the subject of a 2003 documentary.

Frazetta was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999.


Egyptian Queen - 1969


The Moons Rapture / Catwalk - 1994


Carson of Venus - 1963


Lost City - 1964


Land of Terror - 1964


Reassembled Man - 1964


Conan the Barbarian - 1966


King Kong - 1966


Sea Monster - 1966


Night Walk - 1966
 

The Sorcerer - 1966


Swords of Mars - 1966


Winged Terror - 1966


The Brain - 1967


Bran Mak Morn - 1967


Cat Girl - 1967


Conan the Conqueror - 1967


Conan the Usurper - 1967


Night Winds - 1967


Sea Witch - 1967


Conan of Cimmeria - 1967


Conan the Avenger - 1968


Rogue Roman - 1968


Swamp Ogre - 1968


Mongol Tyrant - 1969


Savage World / Young World - 1969


Vampirella - 1969


A Princess of Mars - 1970


Downward to the Earth - 1970


Eternal Champion - 1970


The Godmakers - 1970


Nightstalker - 1970


Pony Tail - 1970


The Return of Jongor - 1970


Sun Goddess - 1970


Tyrannosaurus Rex - 1970


Conan the Destroyer - 1971


Desperation - 1971


John Carter and the Savage Apes of Mars - 1971


At the Earth's Core - 1972


Birdman - 1972


Creatures of the Night - 1972


Thuvia, Maid of Mars - 1972


A Fighting Man of Mars - 1973


Atlantis - 1973


Black Emperor - 1973


Black Panther - 1973


Black Star - 1973


Conan of Aquilonia - 1973


The Death Dealer I - 1973


Flash for Freedom - 1973


Flying Reptiles - 1973


Ghoul Queen - 1973


Gollum - 1973


Back to the Stone Age - 1973


Monster Out of Time - 1973


The Moon Maid - 1973


Serpent - 1973


Tanar of Pellucidar - 1973


Tarzan and the Ant Men - 1973


Tree of Death - 1973


Flashman on the Charge - 1974


Madame Derringer - 1974


The Mucker - 1974


The Silver Warrior - 1974


Paradox - 1975


Dark Kingdom - 1976


Bloodstone - 1975


The Eighth Wonder / King Kong and Snake - 1976


Queen Kong - 1976


Invaders - 1977


Fire Demon - 1977


Golden Girl - 1977


Castle of Sin / Arthur Rex- 1978


Kane on the Golden Sea - 1978


Sound - 1979


Witherwing - 1979


Las Vegas - 1980


Seven Romans - 1980


Geisha - 1983


The Disagreement - 1986


Victorious - 1986


Predators - 1987


Dawn Attack - 1991


Beauty and the Beast - 1995


Shi - 1995


From Dusk till Dawn - 1996























Born Frank Frazzetta in Brooklyn, New York City, he removed one "z" from his last name early in his career to make his name seem less "clumsy". The only boy among four children, he spent much time with his grandmother, who began encouraging him in art when he was two years old. He recalled in 2010, a month before his death,

"When I drew something, she would be the one to say it was wonderful and would give me a penny to keep going. Sometimes I had nothing left to draw on but toilet paper. As I got older, I started drawing some pretty wild things for my age. I remember the teachers were always mesmerized by what I was doing, so it was hard to learn anything from them. So I went to art school when I was a little kid, and even there the teachers were flipping out."

At age eight, Frazetta attended the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts, a small art school run by instructor Michael Falanga. "[H]e didn't teach me anything, really," Frazetta said in 1994. "He'd come and see where I was working, and he might say, 'Very nice, very nice. But perhaps if you did this or that.' But that's about it. We never had any great conversations. He spoke very broken English. He kind of left you on your own. I learned more from my friends there."

In 1944, at age 15, Frazetta, who had "always had this urge to be doing comic books", began working in comics artist Bernard Baily's studio doing pencil clean-ups. His first comic-book work was inking the eight-page story "Snowman", penciled by John Giunta, in the one-shot Tally-Ho Comics (Dec. 1944), published by Swappers Quarterly and Almanac/Baily Publishing Company. It was not standard practice in comic books during this period to provide complete credits, so a comprehensive listing of Frazetta's work is difficult to ascertain. His next confirmed comics work are two signed penciled-and-inked pieces in Prize Comics' Treasure Comics #7 (July 1946): the four-page "To William Penn founder of Philadelphia..." and the single page "Ahoy! Enemy Ship!", featuring his character Capt. Kidd Jr.

Frazetta was soon drawing comic books in many genres, including Westerns, fantasy, mystery, and historical drama. Some of his earliest work was in funny animal comics, which he signed as "Fritz". In the early 1950s, he worked for EC Comics, National Comics, (including the superhero feature "Shining Knight"), Avon Comics, and several other comic book companies. Much of his work in comic books was done in collaboration with friend Al Williamson and mentor Roy Krenkel.

Noticed because of his work on the Buck Rogers covers for Famous Funnies, Frazetta started working with Al Capp on Capp's comic strip Li'l Abner. Frazetta was also producing his own strip, Johnny Comet at this time, as well as assisting Dan Barry on the Flash Gordon daily strip. He married Massachusetts native Eleanor Kelly in New York City in November 1956. The two would have four children: Frank Jr., Billy, Holly and Heidi.

In 1961, after nine years with Capp, Frazetta returned to comic books. He also helped Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder on two or three stories of the bawdy parody strip Little Annie Fanny in Playboy magazine.

In 1964, Frazetta's painting of Beatle Ringo Starr for a Mad magazine ad parody caught the eye of United Artists studios. He was approached to do the movie poster for What's New Pussycat?, and earned the equivalent of his yearly salary in one afternoon. He did several other movie posters.

Frazetta also produced paintings for paperback editions of adventure books. His interpretation of Conan visually redefined the genre of sword and sorcery, and had an enormous influence on succeeding generations of artists. From this point on, Frazetta's work was in great demand. His covers were used for other paperback editions of classic Edgar Rice Burroughs books, such as those from the Tarzan and Barsoom (John Carter of Mars) series. He also did several pen and ink illustrations for many of these books. His cover art only coincidentally matched the storylines inside the books, as Frazetta once explained: "I didn't read any of it... I drew him my way. It was really rugged. And it caught on. I didn't care about what people thought. People who bought the books never complained about it. They probably didn't read them."

After this time, most of Frazetta's work was commercial in nature, including paintings and illustrations for movie posters, book jackets, and calendars. Primarily, these were in oil, but he also worked with watercolor, ink, and pencil alone. Frazetta's work in comics during this time were cover paintings and a few comic stories for the Warren Publishing horror magazines Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella.

Once Frazetta secured a reputation, movie studios lured him to work on animated movies. Most, however, would give him participation in name only, with creative control held by others. An advertisement based on his work was animated by Richard Williams in grease pencil and paint and shown in 1978. In the early 1980s, Frazetta worked with producer Ralph Bakshi on the feature Fire and Ice, released in 1983. The realism of the animation and design replicated Frazetta's artwork. Bakshi and Frazetta were heavily involved in the production of the live-action sequences used for the film's rotoscoped animation, from casting sessions to the final shoot. Following the release of the film, Frazetta returned to his roots in painting and pen-and-ink illustrations. Frazetta's paintings have been used by a number of recording artists as cover art for their albums. Molly Hatchet's first three albums feature "The Death Dealer", "Dark Kingdom", and "Berserker", respectively. Dust's second album, Hard Attack, features "Snow Giants". Nazareth used "The Brain" for its 1977 album Expect No Mercy. Frazetta also created new cover artwork for Buddy Bought the Farm, the second CD of the surf horror band "The Dead Elvi". The U.S. Army III Corps adopted "The Death Dealer" as its mascot.

In 2008, the cover illustration to the Burroughs paperback "Escape on Venus" sold at auction for $251,000. Frazetta retained the original Conan paintings, and long refused to part with them. Many were displayed at the Frazetta Museum in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. In 2009, Frazetta's "Conan the Conqueror" painting was the first to be offered for sale, and was purchased for $1 million.

In the early 1980s, Frazetta created a gallery, Frazetta's Fantasy Corner, on the upper floors of a former Masonic building at the corner of South Courtland and Washington streets in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. The building also housed a Frazetta art museum that displayed both his own work and, in a separate gallery, that of other artists. In his later life, Frazetta was plagued by a variety of health problems, including a thyroid condition that went untreated for many years. In the 2000s, a series of strokes impaired Frazetta's manual dexterity to a degree that he switched to drawing and painting with his left hand. He was the subject of the 2003 feature documentary Frank Frazetta: Painting With Fire.

By 2009, Frazetta was living on a 67-acre (0.27 km2; 0.105 sq mi) estate in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, with a small museum that is open to the public. On July 17, 2009, his wife and business partner, Eleanor "Ellie" Frazetta, died after a year-long battle with cancer. He then hired Rob Pistella and Steve Ferzoco to handle his business affairs.

On December 9, 2009, Frazetta's son, Alfonso Frank Frazetta, 52, known as Frank Jr., was arrested for attempting to steal approximately 90 paintings from the Frazetta museum. He was accompanied by Frank Bush, 49, and Kevin Clement, 54. His wife, Lori Frazetta, told state police that Frank Jr. and Ellie had run the family business until Ellie's death, when infighting over the paintings began. The son maintains he was trying to prevent the paintings from being sold, per the wishes of his father, who he says had given him power of attorney over his estate. After siblings Billy Frazetta, Holly Frazetta Taylor, and Heidi Grabin filed a lawsuit against Frank Jr. in March 2010, claiming misappropriation of their father's work, which they said the artist had transferred to a company controlled by those three, the family issued a statement on April 23, 2010, that said, "all of the litigation surrounding his family and his art has been resolved. All of Frank's children will now be working together as a team to promote his ... collection of images...." The Monroe County district attorney later that day said he would drop theft and burglary charges against Frazetta Jr. at the request of family members.

Frazetta died of a stroke on May 10, 2010, in a hospital near his residence in Florida. Recently one of Frazetta's paintings', 'Conan the Destroyer’, sold for $1.5 million. It was bought by a private collector and is the highest paid for any of Frazetta's paintings.

Frazetta has influenced many artists within the genres of fantasy and science fiction. Yusuke Nakano, a lead artist for Nintendo's Legend of Zelda series, cites Frazetta as an influence. Fantasy artist and musician Joseph Vargo cites Frazetta as a primary influence, and his art calendars since 1998 mark Frazetta's birthday.

Amazon: The Fantastic Worlds Of Frank Frazetta Volume 1

Amazon: The Fantastic Worlds Of Frank Frazetta Volume 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Frazetta

Comments

[lisa-thecat.livejournal.com]

Queen Kong was really funny...

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Think what the story could be like ;-)

[lusiology.livejournal.com]

I used to have a book of his pre 1980 paintings. I always loved his depictions of'real' women and not stick thin bimbos.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

As I said in the comment to Kirby, I think those women are beautiful and The Moons Rapture is my favorite, since that back is so exciting being totally possible in an ordinary woman.

[kirby-crow.livejournal.com]

It's ridiculous how much I love everything here, and Frank Frazetta for just... being Frank Frazetta. That he said in his documentary that his lifelong primary influence for his paintings of all those voluptuous women was his wife just endeared him more to me. :)

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

What I love of those women is that they are beautiful with all their voluptuous curves

[kirby-crow.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, and because it has to be said:

CONAN! :) :) :)

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

LOL, that too ;-)