FRANK FRAZETTA PAINTED WITH FIRE (AND ICE)

[defrog]

Meanwhile, many of you already know that Frank Frazetta is gone as well.

And of course, there’s any number of pop-culture touchpoints I could raise here – Conan, John Carter Of Mars, Vampirella, Meat Loaf, anti-smoking ads, Battlestar Galactica, etc.

But for me, when I think of Frazetta, the first thing I think of (besides Molly Hatchet) is this:

Watch on YouTube

I had this on CED videodisc a hundred years ago, and I watched it constantly. And I’d be lying if I said part of the attraction wasn’t watching Teegra run around in a thong (and really, isn’t that 60% of the secret of barbarian fantasy’s popularity right there?), but I was also a fan of both Frazetta and Ralph Bakshi, and I was fascinated by the process of rotoscoping and its potential.

Nowadays, of course, we have digital motion-capture, and Bakshi’s rotoscope films look clunky in comparison. At the time, though, I was pretty knocked out by it. (And hey, if rotoscoping is good enough for Tom Waits, it's good enough for me.)

As for the film itself, well, it depends on how silly you find the barbarian fantasy genre, I suppose. I wasn’t that much into it even then (sorry, but Conan never did much for me), and I haven’t seen it in 20 years. But as I remember it, the story is cliched but okay as barbarian fantasies go, and at least works as a vehicle for the animation and the artwork.

Anyway, it’s no disgrace on Frazetta, though I’m curious to know if it gets a mention in the documentary on him a few years ago.

So long Frank, and thanks for all the art.

Putting the “broad” in “broad brush”,

This is dF