“He was the best.”
“I spent my life staring at his paintings.”
“I can’t believe he’s gone.”
The comments on the internet forums go on for pages and pages, everyone saying the same thing, each in his or her own words. Frank Frazetta, 20th century pop culture and fantasy artist, showed generations of readers what the words in the books were saying. This is what Burroughs’ La of Opar looked like as she stood defending her jewels; this is what Tarzan looked like as he prowled the jungles of our minds… This is how it looks inside these pages. And we did stare, and knew he was correct — of course that’s what life on Mars looked like! How could it be anything other than that?
His output spanned book covers, magazine covers, film posters, comic strips and books, album covers, paintings, murals; it hangs in private collections and museums and wherever it is displayed, whether original work or print, people stare. Frazetta illustrated worlds. He described with brush strokes what writers described with words, and mesmerized generations with explosions of color and brilliant studies of the human form divine.
There are many who studied his technique and style, many which have followed and done wonderful works — but there was only one Frazetta and his loss will be felt for decades to come.
The Brooklyn-born Frazzetta (he started out with two Zs) attended the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts at the age of 8. He studied for 8 years and when his instructor died and the school closed, Frazetta went to work, drawing for comic books while still in his teens and signing much of his work then as Fritz. His biography notes that he once turned down work with Walt Disney, preferring in the 40s and 50s, to work with Al Capp on Lil’ Abner along with creating the Buck Rogers covers for Famous Funnies, his own strip Johnny Comet, among others.
In the 60s, his work in MAD magazine is credited for getting the nod from Hollywood to do a poster for the Woody Allen film, What’s New Pussycat? Frazetta truly found his footing in the 60s when he created the cover for a new book of stories by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp about a guy named Conan. It was the cover of Conan The Adventurer that set the bar for fantasy novels; a standard still held to today.
His covers for Warren magazines Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella only cemented his status as the finest living practitioner of fantasy illustration. By the 70s he was in full stride and Frazetta was the man everyone wanted for everything. It has been reported that publishers would take a Frazetta painting and hire an author to write a story around it.
His wife of 53 years, Eleanor Kelly (Ellie), whom Frank credited with holding the business reins so he could handle the creative reins, died last year and shortly thereafter the family began fighting over the legal rights to their father’s work, housed in the Frazetta Art Museum in Stroudsburg, PA. Only recently the Pocono Record ran a story noting that the charges would be dropped and that all the problems had been worked out. It seemed everyone was friendly again, which is a blessing for the patriarch, knowing that the family disputes had finally been settled. The Pocono Record today reported that Frank Frazetta suffered a stroke Sunday evening and Monday, Frazetta’s business managers Rob Pistella and Stephen Ferzoco said his death was due to complications from that stroke.
Incredibly prolific, Frank Frazetta stands today as he has for decades past, unequalled and unmistakable. Sadly, we must now add one more thing; handsome, ornery, funny, generous, wonderful Frank Frazetta is mourned.
’Bye, Frank. I didn’t know you, but I feel we met in every Barsoom adventure I traveled — and I traveled them all. Thanks for the thrills.
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