Behind-The-Scenes of the new Frazetta Reference Book

(This essay was accidentally deleted. It was originally posted on 4-26-2008.)

It started as an idea in the mind of James Bond (Yes, that is his real name). James is a longtime fan and collector of Frazetta’s work and he had the dream to assemble a comprehensive and definitive index to the voluminous published works of Frank Frazetta. He worked quietly for many years, compiling mountains of data for inclusion in the book. He went to several fantasy and science-fiction fan conventions and “talked up” the project. As fate would have it, I had also been keeping a growing index devoted to Frazetta. James and I met and decided to merge our efforts. James and I met with Ellie Frazetta at the Frazetta Museum and presented her a rough copy of the index. Ellie immediately understood the importance and value of such a thorough reference work documenting her husband’s great legacy. We struck a deal, signed a contract, and then proceeded to bring this book into existence. Ellie introduced James Bond to David Spurlock, the owner/publisher of Vanguard Publications. Ellie suggested that David would be a great choice to handle the publication. David has a long resume of fine publications including work by Wally Wood, Hal Foster, Al Williamson, and many other notables. As a lifelong Frazetta fan David had the right expertise and proper sensitivities to handle this project properly. Ultimately, David Spurlock was selected to bring this important work into existence. One final piece to the puzzle was solved by bringing in noted collector, Andrew Steven, who owns a vast collection of published Frazetta materials spanning Frank’s entire career. Andrew agreed to fact-check the index and make sure all the references and numbers were accurate. Many of the images in this book were scanned from Andrew’s massive reference collection. We owe a big debt to Andrew for his persistence in getting everything “just right”. Finally, James Bond devoted countless hours to the actual writing of the index and even more hours inputting the data, an exhausting and time-consuming task made easier by his passion for Frazetta’s art and his vision of the importance of such a work for the legion of Frazetta fans worldwide. Please check the following link for more detailed info about the various editions and content:

http://www.vanguardproductions.net/frazetta/index.html

The book is in the process of production and should be on the shelves later in the year.

DocDave Winiewicz

The Frazetta Female

I like the girls of Vargas. I like the pinups of Elvgren even more. As a matter of fact, there are scores of very talented girlie artists that have drawn and painted females of every race, occupation, and in every setting…and continue to do so. The one common element of all these artists is that they present fresh-looking girls exhibited with little touches of soft-core titillation. They are all so perky and exuberant…it’s impossible not to find them very appealing. It is a growth industry and not likely to stop anytime soon. At any given time EBAY is stuffed with hundreds of female depictions from artists of varying degrees of talent.

Now, let’s add Frazetta into this equation. He is, in a word, different. Why is it that collectors are ALWAYS looking for “babes” by Frazetta? This is the number one pursuit by Frank’s legions of rabid worldwide fans. I get requests every single day from collectors looking for a great Frazetta female. Why is this? It is because of the unique nature of Frazetta’s women. Yes, he has drawn that same type of softcore pinup girl. We can see these girls displayed in the men’s magazines wash illustrations from the early 1960’s. They are beautifully drawn, but for the most part they don’t rise above the norm for this type of subject matter. He was doing a job and doing it well. On his worst day Frank can draw girls better than most other artists. Consider this unique case of the female drawn for this 1962 illustration (from a men’s magazine). The story is unimportant. The man is beautifully rendered, but he is there to complete the story. The crosshatching defining his back is simply sublime. The fantastic machine is there as a bit of an inside joke. It’s looking at her bottom and saying “Va-Va-Voom” (if you can understand machine language!). Delightful.

Frank wanted the woman to be special. He spent 3 full pages in his 1962 sketchbook to explore the composition. This book features large 11x14 inch pages. Frazetta has girls jumping, standing, writhing, rolling, tumbling, and floating across these 3 pages. Is he having fun? He certainly is. Thank heaven that we have these pages intact and we are able too see this great mind at play. Notice that he even includes a caveman on one of the pages. One might think it is out of place here. Not at all. With all those females populating those pages, Frank drew his id onto the page. That caveman is the visual embodiment of Frank’s testosterone. All those women demand a leering male presence! Frank is there. Quite amazing, really.

The final result is a sensational floating female, an apparition in the night with lush, wild hair and a face that defies description. Is this your standard cutesy pie girl-next-door type? Not at all. Her face reveals a woman that is gentle and sensual, strong and erotic. The face has catlike qualities that are unusual and highly desirable. Has Frazetta ever drawn a better female face? I do not think so.

With his women Frank transcends the pinup mentality and all its superficial prettiness and contrived sexiness. His women smolder. There is genuine mystery present and a sense of personal power. He brings a sense of insight and revelation to his depictions that go beyond prettified surface descriptions. That is the realm of Vargas and Elvgren and countless others. Again, they are sensational painters of the female form. But Frazetta brings a new set of very special qualities to his best females. Page upon page could be written about the magic of the Cat Girl, or the Burroughs heroines, or all those other sensual females from the Canaveral drawings or the Doubleday illustrations. The list goes on and on. One thing is sure…collectors will always be searching for the best Frazetta female that their pocketbook can afford. Now, that is ART with all the capitals in place!

Dr. Dave Winiewicz (c)2008

Frazetta's Cartoonistry

The famous Johnny Comet series by Frazetta, which ran from 1952 to early 1953, is still misunderstood. It is a difficult strip to describe because of the unique approach that Frank employed. It cannot be described as a straight realistic strip in the fashion of Foster’s TARZAN or Raymond’s RIP KIRBY strips. Frazetta blends a great deal of cartooning into this strip along with a straight realistic approach. Hence, I came up with the admittedly poor term of “cartoonistry” to describe Frank’s intention. This represents the blending of straight creative artistry with the exaggerated elements of cartooning. Throughout his career, Frank has been known to describe himself as a “cartoonist”. Of course, he is much, much more than that. In this example, which is from the very end of the strip, we see Frank using this technique. This is the famous “piercing eyes” daily that some people have attributed to Al Williamson. It is well known that Frank used a little help from his friends on selected dailies; this is not one of them. The babe in the corner is pure Frazetta…deliciously sexy, with prominent breasts that immediately capture the viewer’s attention. The background rivalry is wonderfully animated with Frazetta’s unique energy. The second panel is a little too cartoony, but still very skillfully drawn. Note the wonderfully harmonized lines in the chin. Nothing is out of place. There are no false steps in the rendering. The excessive cartooniness of the face fooled many into thinking that Williamson had a hand here. No, quite frankly, this rendering scheme is too precise, too perfect, for Williamson at this stage of his career. His limitations with facial drawing were very apparent during this period. Frazetta wanted this particular daily strip to feature facial intensity. That is why every single eye in this daily has that “piercing” quality. Frank was heightening the drama, upping the intensity; he was having FUN! The third panel is better. The face is intense and foreshadows the wildness of the fight that is to follow in the subsequent strips. Sex, confrontation, impending violence…this strip has it. It really doesn’t matter if Johnny Comet (Ace McCoy) does not appear. The great artwork redeems the daily and makes it another unusual Frazetta prize.

(c) 2008 Dr. Dave Winiewicz

Frazetta Thinks

Frank’s approach to art is so intuitive and natural that it takes very little for him to get a mental grasp of the essence of a scene. He “sees” the result with an act of intuition and gets it drawn or painted as soon as possible. He doesn’t like to over-intellectualize the process. There are exceptions to this rule, however.

One of those exceptions is the famous “death scene” from the 1977 KUBLA KHAN portfolio. Most of the plates were drawn in 1975, with the cover image being added in 1977. Frank was giving a great deal of thought to the composition of the scene. He wanted to maximize the emotional impact. He did a series of quick sketches to try and get a clear visual grasp of what he was searching for. I have depicted all these studies. It is easy to see the progression of Frank's thought. He starts with ideas that are overtly histrionic and obvious. The mind starts with the obvious visual clichés. He wants something better. Less is more. He wants to reduce any dramatic gesturing and replace it with a scene that smolders with emotion. By spending a little more time “thinking into” the scene Frank has succeeded in creating a world-class illustration that showcases one of the key aspects of the human condition. The human soul shrinks and shrivels in a state of profound grief. The great warrior is brought to his knees with the death of his friend. His mighty arm is distended with emotion. He is surrounded by carnage. Was it worth it? The mind and soul are immediately thrown into the scene with compassion and empathy. This is not a comic book cover with grand overblown gestures and false emotion; this is a serious work that showcases the human condition in all its mystery and profound melancholy. It just does not get much better than this.

Dr. Dave Winiewicz (c) 2008

Foster's TARZAN: The Good Stuff #4

"Foster is the father of us all." Jose- Luis Salinas, artist of the CISCO KID

The very first time I walked into the studio of Al Williamson I went to his drawing board. There was a beautiful Warren page that he was inking. On the floor next to his chair was a beaten-up comic book, heavily used and soiled.

"What's that, Al?"

"Oh, that's the Bible."

"The Bible!"

"Yes, that book answers all my questions. If I have a problem, that's the first place I go. All the answers are there."

The comic book Al was talking about was the TARZAN SINGLE SERIES #20 book that contains reprints of Hal Foster's TARZAN pages from the early 1930's. The influence of Hal Foster simply cannot be calculated. Every master of the field and every wannabe artist swiped constantly from Foster. He was the number one resource.

And yet, in our field, Foster's TARZAN is underappreciated and wildly undervalued by the wider audience. There are 2 reasons. One is that most people have rarely seen top-quality Foster TARZAN originals. Secondly, most of them were in deplorable condition because of mistreatment and improper storage. Most of the extant Tarzan originals came from 2 sources...George Roussos and Fred Ray. Both artists had large caches of these pages obtained directly from Foster and they gradually let them go into the art marketplace. Several collectors (in particular, myself, Russ Cochran, and Jack Gilbert) spent thousands of dollars to restore these treasures and save them for posterity. I had a dozen pages restored, including a fabulous 3 page dinosaur sequence for Al Williamson from 1932.

The famous "egyptian sequence" of pages from 1932-34 might be the finest strip art adventure ever drawn and certainly the most influential. Even the great Alex Raymond "borrowed" many motifs from Foster for use in his Flash Gordon strip. Consider the 3 pages I have reproduced. First there is the 2 page egyptian sequence where Tarzan battles the apes to become King of the Apes, then must confront the Pharaoh. The color page was a hand-colored gift by Foster to the ER Burroughs family. The ERB archives has a letter from Foster talking about this wonderful gift. The last panel of this page is probably the greatest of all Foster's Tarzan drawings. Note the gestures of Tarzan throughout the pages. This was something new. His handling of the human form was fresh and experimental. The second page, "The Miracle", continues the furious action. Note the sophistication of the layout. The top banner showcases the two protagonists and foreshadows the content. The portrait of Tarzan on the top is sensational and captures the rugged good looks of the ape man. Foster confided to Al Williamson that he borrowed the look of Tarzan from the old Buck Jones cowboy serials.

Foster changes his vantage points from close-up to cinematic panoramas. The art is beautifully drawn and the historical details give a special atmosphere. Remember that this is really the birth of the adventure strip. Foster was creating from whole cloth. You can feel his juices being poured into the drama and cliffhanger endings. His compositional designs and storytelling are simply first rate. If you don't "get" Tarzan by Foster, then you need to deepen your grasp of real art. Every page from this sequence is a great American treasure.

Frazetta was equally fanatical about Foster. In the late forties he pursued George Roussos to get some Tarzan originals. Both he and Al wanted them desperately. I have added an early sketch page by Frank from one of Roussos' sketchbooks where Frank pleads for some Tarzans. Frank knew "the good stuff" at a very early age. Frank ultimately received 3 pages, all from the egyptian sequence. The page I have reproduced is the best of the three. Frank had it framed and it hung in his living room for 40 years until I wrested it from him. If you look at that page carefully you can see the elements that would stay with Frazetta for his entire career. The upfront action, the delicate foliage, the "gravitas" and authenticity of the settings and story; all these things defined the later Frazetta. I was fortunate to learn about Foster at the feet of men like Al and Frank. What an education that was!

Dr. Dave Winiewicz (c)2008

The Good Stuff #3: Salinas

I bought my first Salinas daily in 1974 for $25. It featured indians and Cisco tied to a tree. It was an unknown strip for the most part, but I thought the art was sensational. I still have it. Over the years these Cisco strips have become widely popular and the prices keep rising for the better examples. The strip I am reproducing here is one of the very best examples I have seen. It really transcends the common everyday themes of bar fights and horse chases and focuses on atmosphere. The inking is dripping with mood. The rendering is so evocative, so mysterious. Everything is just right. The whole scene is painted with moonlight. Every so often a great example emerges that defines a strip at its highest level of attainment. This is one such example. It employs subtlety, not obviousness. It employs mood, not simple action. This example sold for a record price and it was worth every penny.

Dr. Dave Winiewicz (c)2008

The Good Stuff #1

This little series is devoted to "the good stuff" i.e. art of outstanding quality. One might say that surely the good stuff varies according to individual tastes. Everyone has their own definition. I would answer this with a very emphatic "NO"! Quality is not a matter of opinion. Quality represents a set of criteria that have stood the test of time. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is another example of clear weak mindedness that tries to cover up a virulent aesthetic relativism that permeates our culture and values. I will not debate this. I've spent 30 years debating this. The issue has long been settled for me. The great tradition dictates that artists such as Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, Hokusai, Hiroshoge, etc., are time-transcending masters whose work transcends their historical epochs. They are the creative beacons that define the human race at its finest.

In our field there are such masters of the medium that stand head above shoulders over the lesser practitioners. In this regard, true quality triumphs over the nonsense of nostalgia. Do you collect strictly from nostalgic motivation? There is nothing wrong with trying to capture a few flashes from one's golden childhood. Overall, however, this is an illusory puruit. The eye and mind must be set on QUALITY or the end of the artistic hunt will easily evaporate in short order. A 1962 painting of Green Lantern by Pop artist Mel Ramos recently sold for 600 thousand dollars at BONHAMS auction house. The image was quite weak. I have included a shot of the oil. There was little of real quality there. Other motivations led someone to acquire this oil. Quality was not a consideration. Much of the current "Madison Avenue" art world is built on this type of misdirection. The central pursuit of quality has been replaced by some perverse version of ego gratification or simply the pursuit of an "alleged" status symbol. This type of collector is collecting with his ears, not his eyes.

One of the greatest masters is George Herriman. Thousands of words have been written about the relationship among Kat, Kop, and Mouse. Poets have chimed in. Great twentieth century titans such as William Randolf Hearst, Raushenberg, and DeKonnick have collected original KRAZY KAT originals. I am not the first one to assert that it is the finest comic strip of the 20th century and represents one of the greatest sustained creative efforts ever seen in the art world. Herriman is a true master. Words cannot approach the whimsical visual poetry of his pages, nor the idiosyncratic language that dwells within. Great connoisseurs will always recognize KRAZY KAT as art to cherish.

The depicted page is an absolute masterpiece. It's all there, from the unique composition and design, the wild narrative flow, and the poetry of expression. This is, indeed, the good stuff. It is always fresh, always satisfying.

Why, one might ask, do many people actively dislike KATS? Is it just an acquired taste? The answer lies with the person approaching it. It is important with all art TO BRING SOMETHING TO THE TABLE!! Great art makes demands on the viewer. Many people come unprepared. They don't want to work, to contemplate in order to unlock the essence of a work of art. They are intellectually lazy. Flowers and barns are easy to look at. Millions of homes have these "decorations" everywhere on every wall. But, it is not art; it is visual comfort. It is the equivalent of popcorn and pop. It doesn't satisy. It is temporary. It is not an engagement with a creative soul.

Great art demands an educated eye and ATTENTION. We must attend to a masterpiece. Most of our day is spent devaluing the present, fragmenting our perceptions into thousands of surface diversions. Constant TV watching, texting, ubiquitous cell phone calls...everything is there to kill our concentration , to cheapen the "here and now". With art, all of our attention needs to be gathered and directed. Ask yourself seriously, how much of my art is worthy of this consideration. If it isn't, then, sorry, it's not "the good stuff".

Dr. Dave Winiewicz (c)2008