Frank Frazetta (1928-2010)

His involvement with the animation world was relatively brief, but his inspiration to artists, animators and cartoonists, world over, cannot be denied. Frank Frazetta, the science fiction/fantasy painter, whose commercial art appeared on movie posters, in comic books and on numerous paperback novels has passed away. He began his career in the 1940s drawing funny animal comics for various publishers. He later ghosted L’il Abner for Al Capp and occasionally assisted Will Elder on Playboy’s Little Annie Fanny. He became famous for his sword-and-sorcery art, which included covers for Creepy and Eerie magazine, and on the Conan the Barbarian novels. For animation, he drew the poster for Rankin-Bass’ Mad Monster Party (1967) and collaborated with Ralph Bakshi in producing the animated feature Fire & Ice (1983). Perhaps the most satisfying adaption of Frazetta to animation was by Richard Williams in this 1978 Jovan after shave commercial: