Frank Frazetta, 1928–2010

After starting as an ink-on-paper comic book artist, Frank Frazetta emerged as a genre-defining illustrator of fantasy whose book covers, movie posters, and rock album covers set the standard for the “sword and sorcery” category of fantasy. Indeed, he was widely regarded as the godfather of fantastical illustration.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Frazetta “showed an early propensity for art,” studying painting at a local art school, said the Los Angeles Times. He worked as an artist on Li’l Abner and other comics, and for a time had his own race car–themed strip—Johnny Comet. He also drew for DC Comics, EC Comics, and Mad Magazine, for which he did a 1964 Beatles cover featuring a caricature of Ringo Starr.

But “his signature images were of strikingly fierce, hard-bodied heroes and bosomy, callipygian damsels in distress,” said The New York Times. His 1966 cover for Conan the Adventurer “created a new look for fantasy adventure novels and established Frazetta as an artist who could sell books,” reviving the Conan series in the process. His illustrations were so commercially powerful that “paperback publishers have been known to buy one of his paintings for use as a cover, then commission a writer to turn out a novel to go with it.”

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His collectors included such notables as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Clint Eastwood. He was also popular with heavy metal bands, producing album covers for Molly Hatchet and Nazareth. Last year, his cover art for Conan the Conqueror sold for $1 million.