Burly Living: What I Learned from Frank Frazetta

I was reading a huge interview with Frazetta just recently. I'd always had Frazetta in my periphery. I knew him for the Conan paperback covers. I remember as a kid being a little freaked out by his paintings. I was a bit of a poosy as a kid, so forgive me. I thought they were neat, but scary in a "I'm glad I'm not a f*cking Viking" sort of way. By chance, just a year ago or so, I somehow discovered Frazetta had been working in the 1950s, had been ground-zero for the pulp mags back in the Real Day, where it was REAL. I saw some of his work and thought, "Sheet, I've been missing out on Frazetta."

Soonafter, I stumbled across the Comics Journal Library edition with the massive Frazetta interview in it. Also some glorious discussions with the great Russ Heath and Russ Manning. In this interview, Frazetta points out where the strength in his figures, his Conans and Death Dealers, actually comes from. It's not about drawing body builders, whom Frazetta called "idiotic." It's all about the glutes. Strength, real strength in actual fighting men, is generated by the muscles of the butt.


And this was a revelation to me, for some reason. Frazetta was probably a better athlete than he was an artist. I think he was drafted by the San Franscisco Giants. He was a fighting street tough in the 1950s, and in the 1970s picked up martial arts with the same natural ease. Brilliant, but never pretentious, about anything he picked up. Frazetta enjoyed life. Until his health problems started to cloud his days, I get the impression Frazetta was 100 percent in on the game of life. Strokes reduced his drawing hand to a twisted claw, and he was teaching himself to draw left-handed. And it was still recognizably Frazetta.

So when Frazetta says a strong ass is necessary for a strong fighter, I believe him. His uncanny anatomy understanding made him a giant.

Recently I snatched up the only copy of a reprint title of Frazetta and Gardner Fox's THUN'DA TALES. Thun'da is Frazetta's Tarzan knock-off, in the 1950s. And when I say the art in this thing blew me away, I'm not kidding. It was like somebody took Joe Kubert and John Buscema and fused them into one god-like being. Thun'da is fantastic stuff, thoroughly pulptastic but unlike anything you've quite seen before.

I guess I'm trying to say, it's good to discover Frazetta, to really appreciate him at a time when he's passed on. Vikings beware...Frazetta is coming.