The art of high adventure.

Frank Frazetta - February 9, 1928 – May 10, 2010

Frazetta was a fantastic painter, and artist. His works have been used for so many different types of media. He is best known for cover art to fantasy books and movie posters.

Everyone who reads this blog (all 5 of you) know that Conan the Barbarian is my favourite film of all time, but that movie wouldn’t have been made without the work of Frazetta. When Conan first came about his books were doing ok, nothing to die over, it was only when they re-published the books with Frazetta’s cover art did the books start to sell out. I was fortunate enough to recently purchase the book with the most famous Frazetta Conan cover art of all time (last weekend at the pulp show for those who missed it).



Frazetta defined Conan’s look and made him a man of adventure and of intelligence – just by the small details in his face. His artwork helped form the Hyborian world where Conan lived. He brought Conan to life on the cover of every book. Conan was his most famous work, but not his only.

He was also responsible for a series of paintings about “The Death Dealer” which you can see was the inspiration for many fantasy villains.

Frazetta also designed the art and world of one of my favourite animated features of all time “Fire and Ice” (I currently own 4 copies of that movie – including the Bluray).

Frazetta was also the subject of the documentary “Painting with Fire” – a 2 disc history of his life’s work. I was lucky enough to have my wife get me the full 2 disc version and I must say it’s worth buying. I own the full version (2 disc) and the single disc version that comes with the collectors edition of Fire and Ice.

Frazetta was a great artist and visionary who I will miss. I constantly check his website for new artwork and was close to buying a few prints from Fire and Ice but decided to hold off – which I am regretting as I believe they will be pretty hard to get now. In any case, he will be missed, but his work will live on.

J-Man.