perfidy

If you don't know who Frank Frazetta is, you're wrong. You most certainly do know his work; it's been in early comics, movie posters, and about a bazillion book covers. He is perhaps most widely recognized for his graphic rendering of Robert Howard's hero from the time "...between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas":

The Barbarian

Frank Frazetta's Conan is Conan. Every artist in the Marvel stable in the last 30-odd years who has worked on Conan titles takes his cue from Frazetta. And that's OK.

But the man's talent is much greater than as an illustrator; he started on a path to fine art as a very young boy, a path he could not finish through no fault of his own. He can work magic with oils, watercolors, pencil, or naked ink. He's a photographer and a sculptor. After a stroke damaged his right side, he learned how to make art with his left. Thrown to his own devices to make a living he wound up in comics, and we are all better people because of it.

If anyone gets the IFC on their cable, keep an eye out for "Frazetta: Painting with Fire", a documentary about his life, his achievements, and his struggles. The interviews with other artists and filmmakers are no less interviews with fans: Brom, John Buscema, Kevin Eastman, Ralph Bakshi, Dino DeLaurentis; the list is long and distinguished. The net effect is not at all a cloying love fest, but simple and heartfelt affection for the man. And the man himself defies stereotype; no scrawny artsy-fartsy, bespectacled fixture of the comic convention, he. Huh-uh. His powerful frame and personal strength he no doubt translated to canvas in his male figures. The guy had a stroke and is just this side of 80, but still could probably thump me. If you don't have IFC, rent "Painting with Fire".

If you can't rent it, buy it via the Frazetta Museum. Matter of fact, I think I'd like to go there in person. Anyone else up for a road trip to PA? My personal fave below the fold:

Snow Giants