Monday, January 29, 2007

Frazetta


On the Eighth Day God created Frank Frazetta. Aside from a few middle aged male Caucasians, there aren't many Frazetta fans out there, which is a shame. What gets me is all the girls who love Boris but hate Frazetta. Now Boris can paint circles around me, but Frazetta has that rare combination of beauty and repulsiveness. Boris is a fantastic renderer though the subjects are puzzling. Maybe it's just age affecting my brain. ( Or I could be right.) Discuss.

12 comments:

Max Ward said...

Frazetta is the greatest painter of all time. He is innovative and fundametally strong. His content is fantastical and exciting. It's rare that you have a beautiful painting with amazing construction, composition, color and technique with really cool and exiciting content, such as Conan the Barbarian and sexy girls.

Barbasaurus Rex said...

Too True his work is amazing from comics to bulging biceps.
Smart Ladies in the know love Frazetta!

Jimbo said...

To freckled D. And I like it too! What is that scary looking doll?

Rich Dannys said...

"On The Eighth Day.." hah
I LOVE that!
Boris' artwork stinks.. As does the work of his wife: Julie Bell. They paint plastic people in plastic circumstances..
It's easy to love Frazetta's painted works.. But I'm a keener for his comic-book stuff! Which is rarely seen & (often) badly reprinted..
Arnie Fenner is supposedly working with the Frazetta family to publish a genuine 'Comic-Book Treasury' soon.. Can't wait for that!!

Gabriel said...

They paint plastic people in plastic circumstances..

Quite accurate, i could never explain so eloquently why their stuff annoy me so much. Thanks!

Jenny Lerew said...

Huh. Who be these strange females you speak of, Jim?

I have always luuuuurved Frazetta, but been cold to Boris(I see him a much lesser version of Frank).

A-way back when I was a pup and looked for animation-type drawing books(or books with drawings that inspired animation to me), the only things--and the first things--I found and bought were the Heinrich Kley Dover books and the slim, compiled Frazetta paperbacks. And one indie published Wally Wood Sketchbook. And the Preston Blair original one--the yellow one. For ages, those were the best of the genre. I still have them all, much thumbed.

But my favorites were the Frazettas; quite apart from the amazing paintings the little black quickie gestural ink sketches were so fantastic I thought I'd die.

Anonymous said...

Boris is the Yngwie Malmsteen of the fantasy art world.

Jimbo said...

To Jenny: How are you darling? So nice to hear your lips on my blog, ..er, Just kidding. I thought this was a dating service, My bad. Yes, some women in the know have taken to Frazetta. My ex and I had some lively discussion on the merits and deficiencies of the two artists in question. She seemed to like Boris because of his smooth rendering which to me is irrelevant if the drawing under it is not happening. Now who can argue with that?

Jimbo said...

To Brian: Does that mean Frazetta is the Hendrix? I'm not sure which way to go with this line of analogies. My youngest brother always preferred Van Halen, Malmstein, and other modern shredders to Hendrix, Clapton, and those guys who were my heroes. In fact I don't know if anyone remembers but Hendrix said(in an interview), that art and music had healing powers and animation was the ultimate form of expression, to paraphrase. It was one of his final interviews, so maybe he was wrong. Or no.

Kali Fontecchio said...

"Hendrix said(in an interview), that art and music had healing powers and animation was the ultimate form of expression, to paraphrase. It was one of his final interviews, so maybe he was wrong. Or no."

Sounds good to me!

Malmstein, there is no real feeling there for me, personally. Hendrix songs can give me chills though-example: Bold As Love.

Anonymous said...

Jim I think you've nailed it. All the technical abilities in the world are meaningless if you don't have the soul or human element. Boris has tons of technical skill but lacks the soul and raw energy of Frazetta's work. I'll take Hendrix, Page, Clapton and Mick Taylor over Malmsteen any day of the week... just as I prefer Frazetta to Boris.

Patrick McMicheal said...

I had a nice long conversation with Franks wife Ellie ( at his museum in PA.) And I asked her how Frank felt about Boris!! Both of them absolutely HATE him for his obvious rip-off style and she pointed out his carefully positioned models!! She assured me that Frank NEVER used models for his paintings.
Frank recently suffered a stroke that disabled his painting hand and arm. He's been painting with his LEFT hand and it still kicks ass. It just takes him longer.