I got a big kick out of the artwork in today’s Lio strip. The “Tip o’ the hat to Mr. Frank Frazetta” note between the panels confirmed that I wasn’t imagining things.
Link to the original from 1966.
That’s neat.
I lurves me some Frazetta! Thanks for the link.
Oh, my.
Looks like Conan SCUBA diving. 
And reminds me of the copperhead I shot Sunday.
Sorry, I prefer my Frazetta homages to have awesome boobage.
Still, that is pretty neat.
Very cool - thanks for pointing that out.
The strip as printed in the Atlanta paper these days is so small I can barely make out words in the panels, much less notes between the panels! :mad:
Incidentally, in addition to all the covers Frazetta did for “Creepy,” “Eerie,” and “Vampirella,” I loved the covers he did for “National Lampoon!” Check out April 1971, June 1972, and August 1973. The “Science Fiction” cover was one of my all-time favorites!
You know, not to drop names or anything…but I actually spent an afternoon with Frank Frazetta watching a baseball game with him in his living room.
Most people I know don’t even know who he is. I’ll ask if they’ve heard of Frazetta and they say, “Oh, you mean the cheese? Yeah, I love that stuff.” Oh well…
I searched for Frazetta and replied to this thread; I didn’t realize how old it was. My apologies…
So, any stories you wanna relate? What was he like? What did he have to say? How long ago? How was his health? How did you come to be in his living room? Anything else you can think of?
Seriously.
This was about three years ago.
I have two friends who are huge Frazetta fans and wanted to go to Pennsylvania for the weekend to visit his museum. I knew who Frazetta was but I mainly tagged along to have fun for a weekend. We went to the museum, which is actually right next to Frazetta’s house, early on a Saturday. I’m not much of an art expert but I have to admit to being damned impressed with seeing his artwork in person. I’d only seen reproductions in my friends’ books, but those in no way do justice to the real paintings. A lot of them seem almost 3-D.
Anyway, the museum is basically a single room and there were a couple dozen or so people walking around the place. My friends had every intention of staying there for every hour it was open that weekend, and eventually they drew the attention of Frazetta’s wife, Ellie (I believe). She is quite the character, to say the least. Since my friends were obviously more than casual fans of her husband’s work, Mrs. Frazetta delighted in taking us around personally and answering questions about the various paintings. She told us all kinds of stories about various people who came to visit the museum, but the one I remember most vividly was the one she told about George Lucas showing up one day to take a look around. She told us that Frazetta agreed to meet with him (which I later found out he rarely does!) and said that Lucas was nervous as hell waiting for the artist to come out of his house. She said that Lucas could barely speak when he finally met Frazetta and told him, “I have to thank you, you know. There would be no Darth Vader if it wasn’t for your paintings.”
OK. So we go back to the museum the next day when it opens. This time Ellie greets us like we’re old friends. (I spent a lot of time chatting with Frazetta’s driver/assistant who told me lots of stories about his boss’s failing health.) My buddies said they wanted to buy something from the gift shop and Mrs. Frazetta came out with a bunch of prints of some her husband’s more famous paintings. My friends find two posters that I believe were actually advertising a showing of Frazetta’s art somewhere or something. I’m not quite sure on this detail but both of them had reproductions of famous paintings on them. My friends also noticed something else: each of the posters actually had little sketches/doodles around the borders…these were orginal and signed by Frazetta himself! So my friends tell Ellie, “We definitely want these.” She looks at them and says, “Hmmmm. They’re really not supposed to be for sale…but let me see if I can get Frank to personalize them to you.” She goes into the house and comes out a little while later and says, “Well, I had to convince him but he’ll do it. He’s worried that if he sells you these his other work will devalue or something.” (That was the gist of the conversation.) But she was laughing as she told us; she definitely wears the business pants in that relationship! Then she says, “I’ve also arranged for you guys to go meet with Frank for ten minutes or so. Hold on and I’ll come get you.”
So my friends are floored. Meeting Frazetta is basically the Holy Grail for them. We wait a bit and then Ellie comes out and says, “Come on in.”
There’s nothing spectacular about Frazetta’s home. It could be anyone’s except for the fact that every square inch is jam-packed with books all over the place and paintings leaning against the walls in every room. My friends started recognizing some of the pieces and talking about which book or album cover or movie poster they were from. Ellie could obviously tell that they were experts in Frazetta’s work, and she loved giving us all the background details and history of all the paintings. My friends, believe me, were in heaven. (Another detail I just remembered: he had lots of signed pictures of the Bushes; George and Barbara and W. I don’t know for sure but I’d guess he’s a Republican!)
Finally, she takes us into Frazetta’s studio/TV room. Again, nothing amazing except for the fact that it was a mess. His couch is just a few feet away from his drawing table/easel. He had been watching a baseball game but got up and shook our hands. It was obvious that he’d had a stroke at some point; one side of his face was basically immobile. My first impression was that he was a cranky old guy who really wanted nothing to do with us. He was meeting with us because Ellie liked us and told him he had to, I figured. He showed us what he had been working on at his table. Apparently his stroke left him without the use of his right hand so he learned to draw with his left. (I got the feeling that he no longer paints.) To my eye, his talent was just as impressive. As I recall, he was in the middle of a sketch depicting a lion or some other big cat relaxing on a branch. It was pretty damn good. He showed us some other art, mainly because he wanted to be polite, I think. But I could also tell he was warming up to us a bit. It was becoming clear to him that my friends were huge fans, but Ellie had earlier warned us that he hated to talk about art. So we deliberately avoided the topic, which is not easy to do when you’re standing in the middle of Frazetta’s art studio!
Anyway, he loved talking about his real passion - cameras. He had a bunch of shelves that were covered with every kind of camera imaginable. One of my friends knows a fair amount about photography, so I was relieved when he could keep up a somewhat intelligent conversation on the topic.
After a while, he said, “You guys wanna watch some baseball with me?” We said sure, of course, and we all sat down to watch whatever game was on. My friends were still awestruck and wouldn’t say anything so I went for it. I said, “Mr Frazetta, do you mind if I change the channel to watch the Red Sox?” He acted all upset but we could tell he was kidding. He said stuff like “A Boston fan in my house? I don’t believe it!” But he let me change the channel and then he really loosened up and started talking about some time he’d spent in Boston. Eventually I couldn’t help myself and started asking him about his art. I said, “You know, I’ve never met anyone who had his own museum. That’s pretty impressive.” After a couple more questions he said, “You know, they made a documentary about me.” I said, “I know. My friends brought the DVD (Painting with Fire, I believe) along and I was planning to watch it on the ride back to Massachusetts.” He acted shocked. “You haven’t even watched it yet? What the hell good are you?” By this time he seemed like he was really having fun. It was obvious he liked being teased and challenged; I got the feeling that most people who meet him just sit there in awe and make him uncomfortable.
Anyway, those “ten minutes” turned into the better part of a Red Sox game. One of us actually left the room to find Ellie and ask her if we should get going. She came back and teased her husband about being mean to us and whatnot. He acts cranky but says something like, “Oh they’re alright. I don’t mind.” But we figured we had taken up enough of his time. So we got up and thanked him for letting us hang out with him. Then he took those posters to his drawing table and personalized them for my friends. (I was dying to ask him to draw me something, too…but I didn’t want to piss him off!) He actually walked us to the door and I said to him, “Hey, if you’re ever in the Boston area, look us up. We’ll take you out to dinner.” He laughed in a way that said, Not a chance, pal. Oh, he also posed for pictures with each of us before we left.
So Ellie saw us out. Told us to come by any time. And now my friends have signed original Frazetta artwork (more than a doodle in the margins, but not exactly a sketch, to be sure) hanging in their homes.
I hope this was interesting. It was fun for me to actually relate this story to someone who knows who Frazetta is!
Wow! Yeah it was interesting! Thanks for taking the time to post your recollections. I don’t know if you’ve seen photos of Ellie when she was younger but she was quite the hottie. Great legs, and, I believe, the inspiration for many of Frank’s early-day paintings of nubile women. I keep intending to buy a copy of his DVD but just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’d be interested to know what you thought of it if you did happen to watch it on the way home. I believe it was produced by his sons and so have wondered whether it was really good or just a lightweight vanity (on their part) project.
I’m glad to hear Frank is doing as well as he is. I’d come to fear that he was on his last legs but it sounds like he’s doing pretty well.
Thanks again for taking the time for your very interesting post.
Funny that my link to a two-month-old comic strip is still valid, but the other link is dead. Here’s another link to issue #3 of Eerie.
Ah, glad you found that. I was disappointed to find that the link upthread didn’t work.
Sadly, Ellie passed away in July of this year.
Oh no! That’s terrible. I’ll have to let my friends know.
But your link reminds me that Ellie joked with us about Frank not being allowed access to his own museum. She was always afraid that he would take paintings down and misplace them.
I honestly can’t imagine how he’s managing without her around. He seemed a bit clueless about the business end of his career. From what I could tell, over the years he just wanted to paint and let her do all the deal-making and promoting and sales. That’s really too bad.
That is awful news. I never would have thought she’d be the first to go. I feel for Frank. At least he’s got his sons and I imagine they will help all they can. Thanks for the update, Khadaji.
That was one of the coolest stories in a long time. Frank is one of those artists I grew up admiring, and reading your tale I feel like I’ve met him vicariously.
I grew up just over the Mountain from East Stroudsburg, he is something of a legend in those parts - although I never met him. But I have friends who still revere him, so I heard the news when she passed.