Frank Frazetta's one of my favorite artists; one of the few of whom I actually bought an art book. Hm, several, in fact. He passed away yesterday.

He drew cool stuff.







(Got those from http://frankfrazetta.org/ -- Large collection but slow site; there are probably better galleries out there.)

Yeah, there was a really great documentary about him on IFC (I think - maybe HBO...hrrmm) called something
like Painting with Fire. The interviews with him were really good, he was very down to earth, and even his
house seemed like a regular guys house. Nothing extravagant.

He was incredibly talented and his influence on art and pop - art cant be underestimated. You could make the case that The Conan and Lord of the Rings movies
would not have looked they way they did if he hadnt first envisioned them.

While Im not a huge fan of things fantasy, I *am* a huge fan if this man's fantasy artwork. Hell, I had a Frazetta poster in my bedroom as a teenager!
Im sure he was an inpiration to generations of kids.

/agreed - he drew cool stuff.

The documentary was "Painting with Fire", and was made back in 2003.

I had something of a mystical experience this morning when, stumbling around my apartment having forgotten how to sleep after being up for 36 hours, and being a bit down about my latest Princess drawing, I noticed "Frazetta" peeking out of a pile of books in the corner, and found it stamped on the spine of a lovely Frazetta picture book, still in its plastic wrap from when I bought it about three years ago! I'd got a couple others at the same time, and I guess I was so spellbound by them that I'd completely forgotten the third one. So I dropped right down on the carpet there and, with the warm morning sunlight streaming over me, plunged into the book's articles and artwork. The book is Legacy, and it's quite good.

One thing it reminded me of is that Frazetta's first extended commercial work was in comics; he worked on comics for seventeen years before breaking into book illustrations. For eight of those years, he worked as a ghost illustrator for Al Capp, particularly on the Sunday strips of Capp's "Li'l Abner":





His later illustrations and paintings still retained that animated, energetic feeling he communicated so well in his comic work.

Oh, and it has that middle image I posted above, the greenish science fiction woman; the caption given is

One I came across today that I really like:



The caption from "Testament" reads:

Its got a valley of the dolls kinda look to it, doesnt it?

Quite good like all Frazetta....

Never actually seen that film! I went and looked up some trailers of it. ("She took the *red* pills." :o) There is some similarity of style there, which I suppose has to do with the subject matter and maybe primarily the contemporary fashions--the film was made in '67.

I read a quote from Frazetta in "Testament" today saying that he could get "lost" in the paintings of "Burian"; this was in a section about his dinosaur paintings, so I take it it was a reference to Czech painter Zdeněk Burian, known for painting paleontological reconstructions--most not including humans, but I like humans, so I'm choosing this, this, and this as examples of his work.

More artist's he's mentioned as having an appreciation for in "Testament":

Sanford Kossin

Willy Pogany (this is a pretty awesome photo of him at work)

Frank Brangwyn

^ Frazetta is portrayed as having an interest in those three in a Testament article by Kenneth Smith. Later, a direct quote of Frazetta--"I love Pyle!"--refers to Howard Pyle.

Huh, wow, Patty Duke took the red pill, Sharon Tate took the blue pill!?!?! Had the W bros seen these? Wouldn't be all the surprising would it? Im about their age, and Ive seen it several times on the fringe channels like Sundance or IFC.

Perhaps Sharon Tate should have taken the red pill....and say, isnt one of the locations in MxO "Mansenn"?

"Mannsen Park," yeah. Hm! :o

They seem like guys who are pretty up on pop culture old and new so you'd definitely think odds are good they'd seen it. And don't forget the green pill! Oh and



(Ooh I hadn't really intended to post non-Frazetta pictures in this thread--that's by Winsor McCay from "Little Nemo")