Monday, May 10, 2010

Conan the Barbarian artist dies


Renown fantasy artist Frank Frazetta passed away earlier today at the age of 82. I don't think the causes have been announced yet, but Frazetta has been in poor health for quite some time, suffering from several strokes in recent years. In his career he created some of the most famous and iconic fantasy art of all time, and he pretty much defined the look of swords-n'-sorcery epics in general and Conan the Barbarian in particular with his paintings. His family was apparently insane -- his kids were all fighting over his estate (and its money), culminating in son Frank Jr. driving a goddamn backhoe into the Frank Frazetta museum to steal paintings supposedly at his father's request -- but apparently that's all been settled. At any rate, Frazetta leaves behind an amazing legacy of art and he will be missed his legion of fans.

4 comments:

Catfreeek said...

I have a couple sets of Frank Frazetta collector cards. Loved his work although my favorite fantasy artist is still Boris Vallejo.

Octopunk said...

Michael Whelan can kick both their asses!

Octopunk said...

Eh, that doesn't really apply. Frazetta and Boris aren't really in the same category as Whelan because he's more sci-fi.

Although in real life I'm sure it's awful, I kind of like the idea of being old and having my family using backhoes to knock down buildings as they fight over my money before I'm even dead.

Doesn't that sound kind of fun?

Jordan said...

Octo, I'm not sure what strange place you're coming from today, but it's all good...you sound like you're having a good time.

Frazetta is, indeed, worse than Vallejo, but he's much more expressionistic and his stuff is correspondingly more artistically interesting in certain ways. It's like comparing Rodin and Giacometti.

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