About Me
I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of eight, at the insistence of my school teachers, my parents enrolled me in the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts. I attended the academy for eight years under the tutelage of Michael Falanga, an award-winning Italian fine artist. Falanga was struck by my talent. My abilities flourished under Falanga, who dreamed of sending me to Europe, at his own expense, to further my studies. Unfortunately, Falanga died suddenly in 1944. At 16, I started drawing for comic books. Fantasy, westerns, mysteries and other contemporary themes. Some of my earliest work was in funny animal comics, which I signed as "Fritz". .............................In the early 1950s, I worked for EC Comics,National Comics, Avon and several other comic book companies. Much of my work in comic books was done in collaboration with great friend Roy Krenkel and artist Al Williamson......................Through the work on the Buck Rogers covers for Famous Funnies, I started working with Al Capp on his Li'l Abner comic strip. At the time I was also producing my own comic strip, Johnny Comet, as well as assisting Dan Barry on his Flash Gordon daily strip. In 1961, after nine years with Capp, I decided to return to regular comics...............Comics had changed during my years spent with Capp and my style was deemed antiquated. Soon after I joined Harvey Kurtzman doing the parody strip Little Annie Fanny in Playboy magazine........................It was also during this time that I turned down an offer from a talent scout to play for the New York Giants. I loved playing baseball! In 1964, my painting of Ringo Starr for a Mad Magazine ad parody caught the eye of United Artists studios and soon I was approached to do the movie poster for the film What's New Pussycat? and I was then on my way! I was then offered and did several other movie posters for the film industry...................... I also started creating paintings for paperback editions of adventure books. My cover for the sword-and-sorcery collection Conan the Adventurer by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp caused a real sensation! Hundreds of thousands of people bought the book for its cover alone. My interpretation of Conan essentially redefined the genre of Sword and Sorcery visually and had an enormous influence on future generations of artists to come. From this point on, my artwork was in great demand. During this period I also did covers for other paperback editions of classic Edgar Rice Burroughs books, such as those from the Tarzan and John Carter of Mars series. I also did several pen and ink illustrations for many of these editions.Over the years my work has long been admired by many Hollywood personalities. Clint Eastwood, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Sylvester Stallone and Robert Rodriguez are fans and friends of mine, and most have commissioned works from me for their movie projects........................................ In the early 1980s I moved to California for two years and worked with my friend, animated movie producer Ralph Bakshi, on the feature Fire and Ice. Many of the characters and most of the story were my creations. After this film project was over I headed home and soon after I returned to my roots in painting and pen and ink illustrations........................................A lot of my paintings have been used by a number of recording artists as cover art for their albums. Molly Hatchet's first two albums feature "The Death Dealer" and "Dark Kingdom" respectively. Dust's second album, Hard Attack, features my "Snow Giants". Nazareth used "The Brain" for their 1977 album Expect No Mercy. In recent years I created original new artwork for "Buddy Bought The Farm", the second album cover of the surf horror band The Dead Elvi. The artwork is the only album cover that has art by me that was created especially for the album. The band Wolfmother used "The Sea Witch" as the cover for their debut cd..These days I'm still drawing and painting, only now I'm only using my left hand! I finished my first left- handed painting in 2005 and finished my second one early this year (2007).....................................................I keep hearing through the grapevine that Frazetta did this and Frazetta said that! Suddenly everyone out there is claiming to be an authority on Frank Frazetta, or a scholar of Frazetta's artwork! They even believe that they know more about me and my art than Ellie, my wife of over 50 years! THERE REALLY IS ONLY ONE TRUE AUTHORITY ON FRANK FRAZETTA OUT THERE, AND IT'S ME!............................ ............................................................ ............................................................ .............. YOU CAN FIND OUT MORE ABOUT ME, MY ARTWORK, AND MUSEUM AT MY OFFICIAL WEBSITE BY CLICKING www.Frank Frazetta.com !
