Frank Frazetta

<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Frank Frazetta (b. February 9, 1928) is one of the world's best known and most influential science fiction and fantasy artists. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and began expressing his artistic talents early. He attended the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts where he studied for eight years under artist, Michele Falanga. Frazetta published his first professional comic, The Snowman, in Tally-Ho Comics at 16 and produced art for several other comic books with a variety of themes including westerns and mysteries. He produced a series for DC Comics, which included The Shining Knight, White Indian and John Wayne.

Frazetta provided Buck Rogers covers for Famous Funnies which led him to his work with Al Capp on the Li'L Abner comic strip. Frazetta also produced a comic strip of his own, Johnny Comet, and also worked with Dan Barry on the Flash Gordon strip. When work drawing and writing comics became scarce, he wrote a parody strip, Little Annie Fannie, for Playboy.

In 1964, United Artists Studios called on Frazetta to create a movie poster for What's New Pussycat. The financial compensation proved to be more than his prior work and he did several other posters and began painting covers for paperback novels. One of his most popular covers was for Conan the Adventurer by Robert E. Howard. His ever increasing popularity led to greater demand for his art and he also created covers for novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs as well as black and white illustrations.

His success led to interest by movie studios in his work and he worked with Ralph Bakshi on the 1983 fantasy film Fire and Ice. The film was not a success and Frazetta returned to painting and illustration.

Frazetta's work remains highly regarded and his paintings have become collectibles.

Although not his primary claim to fame, Frazetta has also co-written the Death Dealer novels with James Silke.