Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Frazetta & the Death Dealer

My dad used to have a print of Frank Frazetta's werewolf painting up near his workspace in the garage. It scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. Real, genuine fear. I remember running from it on more than one occasion. Like I thought the thing was gonna' spring out of the painting and start gnawing on me for a minute. It wasn't until I was almost ten or so that I started to actually kind of like the picture, and it took another five years after that to appreciate what a masterpiece it really was.

If you hadn't already heard, last Monday Frazetta died. His work has been around the world commercially, has been the inspiration for everything from movies to cologne, and probably shaped countless childhood imaginations. Despite a plague of health problems in the last ten years of his life, including a number of strokes which forced him to begin illustrating and painting with his left hand, he continued to create up until the very end. He was a powerful imaginative force to be reckoned with, and his presence will be sorely missed.

RIP
Frank Frazetta February 9, 1928 – May 10, 2010
No more barbarians. No more space babes.
The Death Dealer cometh unto us all.


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