Frank Frazetta, Fantasy Illustrator, Dies at 82

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: New York Times

Frank Frazetta, an illustrator whose vivid colors and striking brushstrokes conjured up fantastic worlds of musclebound heroes fighting with broad swords and battle axes to defend helpless women from horrible beasts, died on Monday in Fort Myers, Fla. He was 82.

The death, caused by a stroke, was confirmed by Rob Pistella and Steve Ferzoco, his business managers. In a telephone interview, Mr. Pistella said that Mr. Frazetta, who had a history of strokes, had returned from a Mother’s Day dinner with his family on Sunday night and complained of feeling ill. Emergency medical services were called and Mr. Frazetta was rushed to the hospital, where he died.

After working on daily comic strips like “Buck Rogers,” “Flash Gordon” and “Li’l Abner,” Mr. Frazetta moved onto comic books in the 1950s. He drew the movie poster for “What’s New Pussycat?” in 1964, and hit his stride executing detailed illustrations of pulp heroes like Conan the Barbarian and John Carter of Mars for their comic magazines and books. His realistic renderings of otherwordly scenarios (and barely clad women) made him the ideal candidate to illustrate the album covers for popular heavy metal albums like Molly Hatchet’s “Flirtin’ With Disaster” and Nazareth’s “Expect No Mercy.”

In November, Wired.com reported, Mr. Frazetta’s cover artwork for the paperback reissue of “Conan the Conqueror” by Robert E. Howard sold to an unnamed collector for $1 million.

Read more: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/frank-frazetta-fantasy-illustrator-dies-at-82/?src=mv

[Amerigo Vespucci]

1. Another hero, another piece of my youth, gone. Thanks for sharing your gift, Mr. Frazetta.

I'm guessing that the boys from Molly Hatchet...the ones still with us, and the ones in Rock & Roll Heaven...are thanking you too.





:patriot:

[cascadiance]

4. Damn, I remember him as an inspiration for me painting in high school...

My first ambitious effort was to recreate this painting then...



Frank, RIP!

Hope Roger Dean has many years ahead of him still...

[Amerigo Vespucci]

5. The single greatest thing an artist can do is make more artists

So Frank inspired you, and he reached the top of Mount Everest.

Keep painting...that's how to keep Frank alive. Keep painting and one day a young artist will look at your work and say

"My first ambitious effort was to recreate this painting then..."

:patriot:

[YOY]

11. And inspire he did.

All the best...from Brom to Elmore and Eastley.

[meegbear]

2. Your 1970s van wasn't complete without a Frazetta painted on the side ...

:cry:

[onehandle]

6. That's one of the first things I thought of. nt

[mitchum]

35. I was gonna ask if he was to be buried in one

[Ozymanithrax]

3. Oh damn, that makes me sad....n/t

[keroro gunsou]

7. this is DEFINATELY

a thread that is useless without pictures....

RIP FF.... :cry:

[HughBeaumont]

8. RIP. Frazetta also did this awesome Ringo for a Mad Breck parody:

One of his paintings (the cavemen) is photoshopped on one of my Mastodon shirts.

[proteus_lives]

9. RIP-So sad.

I have three Franzetta original prints on my wall.

I'm a huge, huge Howard/Conan fan and his work was so influential on the pulp/fantasy genre.

RIP and Godspeed Mr. Franzetta, your art made the world a cooler place.

[YOY]

10. Mad props to the man who brought Conan back (in my humble opinion)

He did the covers back in the day....

Well Brom is still with us...

[proteus_lives]

15. I have a ton of those paperbacks with FF covers.

He did so much for Conan and all of the pulp-fantasy genre.

Crom!

[YOY]

17. The torch has been caried into the present...

I love this series...it covers all the years that Howard did not write of as well as the stories of Conan's life that he did.

Conan as a kid in the "0" graphic novel is cool...and it shows where he get's his spirit. Conaght...his grandfather.

[proteus_lives]

18. I have those.

I like them a lot.

I also suggest the collected B/W edition of the old Savage Sword of Conan Magazines that Marvel did in the seventies. I have the first six volumes and they are amazing.

Thanks to people like Franzetta, Conan and REH are being carried well into the future.

[YOY]

20. The old Savage Sword of Conan? Like the one I keep at my workdesk?

:evilgrin:

Two words: Red Nails (Roy Thomas and Barry Smith's)...darkest shit that ever came out of the 70s...course Boris did the cover.

[proteus_lives]

24. Love Red Nails.

Roy Thomas and Barry Smith are gods. Apparently they were going to make an animated version of Red Nails. But I don't know if they ever did it.

I have a box of the original magazines, found them at a book-sale for a quarter apiece. I whooped and bought the whole box.

I am a REH fanatic and world-class fan of the world's most savage barbarian!

[YOY]

25. It's in post production.

Wonder if it will be bloody or kiddied down.

Better be bloody as fuck.

[michreject]

26. I've got #1 thru #36

All the Howard/De Camp paperbacks with Farzetta covers. I've read most of Howards works and all of his Conan tales several times.

[YOY]

33. Works of literature in motion I say.

Some would say that comic books are a poor mans media...these were my gateway into finding otherwise.

[LanternWaste]

12. I think he and Boris were tied for first place...

I think he and Boris were tied for first place in the Most Absurd Depictions of Women Ever department.


But he certainly did get the rocks off for a lot of sci-fi fanboys (like myself) in the seventies and early eighties.

[blogslut]

28. Absurd, perhaps

I've always loved Frazetta's depictions of women - healthy, vital and quite often, positively badass

[LanternWaste]

30. Don't get me wrong-- I liked his stuff when I was 13

Don't get me wrong-- I liked his stuff when I was 13. Had a print or two of his right up there with Wonder Woman and Farrah in the red bikini. He's like the Thomas Kinkaide of Sci-Fi/Fantasy art.

[blogslut]

31. LOL

Okay. Good for you!

[Quantess]

36. Me too, and I'm a woman.

[blogslut]

37. Yep

Even his "distressed damsels" looked like they could take care of themselves.

[Quantess]

40. Here's another good one. "Sun Goddess"

[blogslut]

41. Ha! We got a thread in the Lounge

...where I posted that very image:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x9360909

Great minds and all that. :hi:

[The River]

50. I've Got That Book

sitting on my coffee table.

Link to unofficial site with much of his art.

http://frankfrazetta.org/

[Lorien]

43. Oh please; Frazetta's women look just like his late wife

and Boris' wife Julie Bell (an award winning artist in her own right, lifetime liberal and a good friend) has served as his model for decades.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WE-Al_Vfm4g/ScVN9KlddOI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/BllV42sXwr4/s1600-h/Julie+Bodybuilder+2.jpg

R.I.P Frank.

[mike_c]

45. my first thought upon seeing this OP...

...well, my SECOND thought, after "oh nooooooo," was to wonder whether you'd seen it yet and whether you'd have any additional comments to add. Frazetta was such an iconic illustrator. I've always admired his work. It's a sad day.

[Lorien]

49. Frank had been sick for a long time after a series of strokes

everyone knew that after his wife Ellie passed away last year that he likely wouldn't be with us for much longer. One of his sons made this past year very difficult for him after stealing millions of dollars of paintings from the family museum in PA. It's so sad that Frank's final year had to be such a turbulent one. He died of a stroke soon after attending a mother's day dinner with his family. :-(

[AsahinaKimi]

13. One of the best Ever illustration artists

He will be missed.

[WeDidIt]

14. Damn

Boris is still around, though.

[KonaKane]

16. RIP Frank....

He was an idol in the art class cliques I hung out in during high school.

[fascisthunter]

19. DAMN!!!! This Man Was a Master... he truly was a gifted man

I figured he was going go sooner than later due to his stroke years ago. Just to give you all a idea of what talent and will this man had, after he suffered a stroke he learned to paint and draw with his other hand. Snobs never could stand him, but he was always the real deal.

He inspired me early on and for that I thank him.

[Octafish]

21. We have lost a seer.

Godspeed, Captain.

[MadHound]

22. Rest in peace Mr. Frazetta,

Your artwork helped make this world a better place.

He and Neal Adams were the bomb when it came to comic art in my youth, still are as far as I'm concerned. All others are but pale imitators.

[Quantess]

23. Love it.

[mrbarber]

27. Damn. One of the best.

RIP Mr. Frazetta. You art has been an inspiration in my life, and I thank you for all you've done.

Hopefully him and Gary Gygax are working on some great games up in heaven. Can't wait to roll a character when I get there.

[flying rabbit]

29. That was the guy

that got me into art. His work still holds up strong. So sad, one more of the great ones gone. You will be missed but never forgotten Frank.

[WCGreen]

32. Frazetta and Neal Adams were my favorite illistrators when I was

into the fantasy comic book thing...

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. We all pass

One of my favs

[proteus_lives]

42. I have an original print of the Death-Dealer hanging on my bedroom wall.

It's one of my treasures.

Frazetta was a genius.

[Aristus]

38. Hands down, most haunting, evocative, eerie, other worldy Frazetta painting:

The Silver Warrior...

[bridgit]

39. Safe passage, Frank ~

[mike_c]

44. noooooo!

Oh damn, there goes another life-long idol of mine. What an iconic illustrator!

[Xithras]

46. Damn. His art, and the fiction it was attached to, were one of my creative inspirations (MNSFW)

His imagination, and the fantasy worlds it brought to life, will be sorely missed.

[myrna minx]

47. Rest in peace...n/t

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

48. He made the world safe for cellulite

Like Robert Crumb, Frazetta's women are very un-PC yet, by modern standards, remarkably sympathetic to femininity.

There is objectification of the sort all figurative painting engages in (literally objectification) and then there is social/cultural commoditization.

Frazetta's women were pin-ups and sexually exaggerated but they were not --as is the case with truly crass commercialization-- dehumanized. They were not plastic.

They guy was all about flesh and movement in men, women and animals (his greatest strength was animals) and he matched even Rubens in making a world of flesh -- tangible, weighty flesh.

It is a artistic accomplishment. (If it was easy everybody would be doing it.)

There were always pin-up style females in comics and on paperback covers... nothing new there. But Frazetta women sometimes had indentations from fat/cellulite on the thighs and buttocks. Their breasts, while always out-sized, did not always defy gravity... he liked gravity. Gravity is a big part of the revelation of form in flesh.

It was a higher and more humane sort of pin-up... one with a level of personal appreciation. (About half of his females were patterned after his wife Ellie in some way.)

Erotica is usually better and more humane the more personal/idiosyncratic it is and Frazetta was, like Crumb, more fetishist than toy-designer.