The death has occurred of Frank Frazetta, the renowned fantasy artist. He was 82. He died in hospital following a severe stroke at his home, and a whole world vanished with him; the world of Conan, and Tarzan; of John Carter of Mars, and Vampirella.
I first became aware of Frazetta when I was a small boy in the Fifties. He was the artist who drew Thun'da, a comic which really gripped my fickle attention. His draughtmanship was good (though not nearly as good it was to become) but what really gripped was the sense of drama he managed to infuse into every panel. All his subsequent work, even as it grew more polished, was to retain this lurid, operatic quality. He was the ideal illustrator for Robert E. Howard's Conan, and the revitalisation in the 1970s of this 1930's franchise was largely due, in my opinion, to Frazetta's spirited paperback covers. He had many imitators, but no equals.
He will be missed.
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