FRAZETTA: KING OF PAINT Chapter 13: 1975 - 1983

by Paul Vespignani

DARK CRUSADE (aka DARK KINGDOM)(1976)(oil painting)(copyright date 1976)/DARK KINGDOM(date unknown)(oil repainting) 

For Frank, DARK KINGDOM was not so much a repainting, but more or less a repair job. By the time DK appeared in ICON (1998) in the late 1990s you could actually see in the reproduction that the thick paint buildup on the anti-hero's right leg had developed a thin network of spider web-like thin cracks. Apparently at some point in the last decade of Frazetta's life some of these pieces of cracked paint either fell off the surface or Frank decided to proactively scrape them off BEFORE they fell off. He then repainted the right leg with a much thinner layer of paint. I prefer the more muscular leg #1, but in all fairness leg #2 is a perfectly acceptable substitute. 

FF must have been pretty keen on DK when it was a new painting back in the mid 1970s. He gave it the VERY high profile of being the cover for FRANK FRAZETTA: BOOK TWO(1977) when he was probably at the all time high of his popularity with the general public. In addition to appearing on the inside of the book it was also awarded a detailed blowup shot which only a handful of paintings ever received. Around this time it was also released as a poster from Frazetta Prints. 

Generally speaking I have a tendency to think and refer to Frank's paintings by their original book titles or their original magazine titles/issue numbers. DARK KINGDOM and KANE ON THE GOLDEN SEA(1977) have always been the 2 exceptions to this rule for me. I think any objective person would agree that DARK KINGDOM is a far more catchy title than DARK CRUSADE. Interestingly the title DARK KINGDOM can be plainly seen on the cover of CREEPY 9 which also features Frank's classic WINGED TERROR cover painting. No doubt Ellie borrowed the DK title from this cover.

1 interesting historical note about DK: when Clint Eastwood commissioned Frazetta to do the movie poster art for THE GAUNTLET(1977) Clint specifically asked FF to emulate the visual look of DK for THE GAUNTLET painting. If you compare the 2 paintings it is obviously that Frank pulled off Eastwood's tricky request quite successfully without being a copycat.

I have sometimes pondered why Clint never commissioned any more movie poster art by Frazetta for his many movies made after THE GAUNTLET. Despite working in 2 very different art forms Clint and Frank seemed to have similar artistic sensibilities. They were definitely 2 men who really appreciated the value of working quickly and efficiently. Considering Eastwood is still alive, someone could ask him why he and FF never developed on ongoing working partnership, but the chances of a journalist doing so on the record in 2025 are pretty much zero. Or maybe less than zero. 

It is also intriguing to speculate if Clint still owns THE GAUNTLET original art or if he sold it off at some point over the years. If he retained it, he might be sitting on a fortune considering the similar DK original sold for a whopping 6 million dollars a few years ago.

So all we are left with from their brief encounter is the excellent painting for THE GAUNTLET and a handful of fun photos of Clint in a white T shirt with his then-girlfriend/co-star Sondra Locke(who never looked better than in Frank's rendition of her in THE GAUNTLET painting) visiting the Frazetta homestead in 1977. Clint and Frank were like 2 artistic ships that passed in the night. 

SOUND(1979)(oil painting)(copyright 1979)/SOUND(1994)(oil repainting)

SOUND(1979)(oil painting)

Frank has gone on the record about SOUND explaining that he originally did this painting for an ad by a Japanese stereo company that asked FF to "paint sound". Personally I have never seen this ad, but would love to give it a gander if ever given the opportunity. If Frank was justifiably proud of his clever conceptual solution to "paint sound"(which probably would have stumped most artists) it was equally obvious that for whatever reason in 1979 he didn't want to expend much time or effort on this finished painting. The 1979 original SOUND falls far short of FF's usually strictly self-enforced standards of excellence. You could make the argument(and I guess I actually AM making this argument) that the watercolor rough for SOUND was a much better piece of art than the 1979 SOUND finished(or perhaps not so finished) oil painting. 

Frank and Ellie didn't waste any time in repurposing SOUND over the following year to maximize their income from it. SOUND appeared as an interior plate in FRANK FRAZETTA: BOOK FOUR(1980), a poster from Frazetta Prints, and it was the cover art for the magazine QUESTAR 9(Oct. 1980). 

As was often the case when FF did repainting he left the original copyright date on SOUND as is and didn't update it to the year of the repainting. Based on the evidence, I am now firmly convinced he did the SOUND repainting in the 2nd half of 1994...so much so that I have the unmitigated audacity to list 1994 as the official repainting date here. As always, I'm more than happy to share my reasoning process on this with you...

Frank's only painting for the famed writer L. Rob Hubbard that was published during the author's lifetime was the superb BATTLEFIELD EARTH(1982) which was 1 of the last handful of paintings that FF did when he was still in relatively solid good health. After LRH died in 1986 Frank did quite a few paintings for the posthumous LRH organization from 1987-1991. Most of these were cover illustrations(many wraparounds) for the anthology series WRITERS OF THE FUTURE.

To the best of my knowledge I don't believe FF ever explained why DAWN ATTACK(for WOTF VII) was his final painting for them, but looking at the printed cover for WOTF VII provides a major clue as to why Frank refused to do any more paintings for LRH Inc. Unfortunately someone at LRH felt that the main figure of the female space warrior in DA needed to be jazzed up and hired an anonymous "artist" to add some unwanted and unneeded(and just plain ugly) contour highlights around the face and figure of the leading lady, thus completely destroying the visual integrity of FF's beautiful painting. While we can't be 100% certain that Frank saw the printed cover of this book, if he DID see it these unauthorized art changes would have been very upsetting to him and quite possibly made him very angry(and quite justifiably so!). Make no mistake, this highlighting job was every bit as egregious as the crude and clumsy fur bikini bottom that some unknown hack inflicted on the Luana figure for FF's horizontal movie poster art for LUANA(1968/1973)(his other 2 pieces of art for the film were left unmolested)...and Frank DID publicly complain about THAT bit of overkill censorship! This is most likely the reason why he did no more art for LRH after DA. 

DAWN ATTACK(1991)

If FF had NOT seen this printed cover it is also possible that by 1991 he was getting sick and tired of surrendering all of his original art pieces to LRH in exchange for their very generous paychecks. As all of the Frazetta faithful know, his big thing was getting back the originals and if he didn't get them back it really bugged him and irked him.

At any rate when the 10th anniversary of WOTF rolled around in 1994 the LRH people most likely wanted a new Frazetta painting, but he was having none of it. Instead the LRH and FF camps came to an amicable agreement that a preexisting FF painting could be chosen for WOTF X(10). SOUND was a good choice because it fit in nicely with the other WOTF covers. The fact that the 1979 SOUND original was used was proof positive that Frank still had not done the SOUND repainting as of the 1st half of 1994. Whenever FF did a repainting and Frank and Ellie repurposed that painting they ALWAYS used the repainting and never a repro of the original. Always without exception.

1994 was a year when FF was taking stock of some of his lesser finished and less successful paintings and doing what he could to improve them by repainting them. We know the minimalist 1970 original of THE ETERNAL CHAMPION was pushed to a lovely full finish in 1994. We also know that the dramatic transformation of JONGOR OF LOST LAND(1970) into JAGUAR GOD I happened in 1994. The repainting of CAPTIVE PRINCESS(1972) has a copyright symbol and no date, but the better late than never appearance of the repainting of CP as a poster from Frazetta Prints strongly suggests it too was repainted in 1994. It seems likely that seeing the printed cover of WOTF X in mid-1994 served as a pointed reminder to Frank that he had really dropped the ball on SOUND way back in 1979. The circumstances that existed back in 1979 were no longer relevant in 1994 and he really wanted to make amends by greatly improving SOUND with a complete, far superior repainting. Considering the slickness and self confidence of the SOUND repainting I don't think there is any doubt that this was a right handed painting that predated his 1996 strokes.
 
Looking at the 1979 SOUND original the diagonal light beam that dominates the composition is about as subtle as a punch in the face. FF's main strategy for the repainting was to much better integrate that light beam into the overall painting. He accomplishes this by making everything AROUND the light beam lighter. The pink in the large planet in the background becomes more of a white with a light pink tint mixed in. The dude who does double duty as a horseback rider AND horn player has the highlights on his face and upraised arm brightened to pure white...so much so that the contour edges of the face and arm blend in uniformly with the light beam. Frank similarly brightens the highlights on the rider's left arm and the back half of the horse, but does a bit of "cheating" by putting some thin halftone holding lines around these forms so they are not totally subsumed visually by the light beam.

SOUND(1994)(oil repainting)

The horse gets a complete repaint with thinner, more elegantly shaped legs, a more streamlined tail, a greatly improved mane with more sensitive thin brushstrokes suggesting individual and longer hairs(as opposed to the crudely brushed original mane). The light and shadow areas of the horse are much softer and subtle in the repainting. An abstract red backpack from the original is painted out totally and this regained space is turned over to show more of the back half of the horse with its brighter highlights.

The rider has some nice red and purple colorations added to his shadow areas and his chest armor is more intricate and detailed. His long horn is simplified into 2 simple tones and the more rounded top of the horn from the original is completely flattened out into a short straight line. The saddleback is more rigidly geometric and given some added rivets. The inverted triangle of the saddle receives a very pretty purple color decorated with red, white, and black lines which looks very different from the original dark tone with thin lines suggesting a chainmail texture. The riveted part of the saddle that extends across the visible front of the horse has been somewhat lightened and given a more subtle tonal gradation. The horse rein has been slightly repositioned, given an extra black holding line, and is a bit brighter in the lighter areas.

SOUND(1994)(oil repainting)(Detail)

The SOUND repainting made its public debut in TESTAMENT(2001), but writers/editors Arnie/Cathy Fenner didn't acknowledge that this image was a repainting and instead gave it the 1979 credit line. 2 decades or so later the repainting appeared again in the wonderful big book THE FANTASTIC WORLDS OF FRANK FRAZETTA(2022) and again the copious liner notes for the painting make no mention of it being a repainting and talk of it as if it were the 1979 original. As for myself, I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't realize that Frank had repainted SOUND until I saw the 2 paintings side-by-side in the Spring of 2024. When you see them right next to each other it is VERY obvious they are 2 quite different paintings, but perhaps when you see the repainting alone your mind plays tricks on you and you think you are seeing the original? Very strange indeed!

In a very weird way the SOUND repainting almost single handedly justifies Frank's whole repainting philosophy/methodology. After all, if an artist can greatly improve a painting by simply painting over it, why shouldn't he be allowed to do so? Why would any well meaning fans or admirers have any moral objections to this? Of course if an artist paints over a painting and makes it WORSE, then that is a problem for everyone.

WITHERWING(1979)(oil painting)/WITHERWING(1979 or 1980)(oil repainting 1)(copyright 1979)/WITHERWING(date unknown)(oil repainting 2)

1 big problem for the otherwise nicely done book cover painting for WITHERWING was the very strange looking female figure(and not strange in a good way). Her profile view face was almost completely obscured by dark shadows, her naked breasts looked oddly flattened out and dimensionless, and her left leg appeared to be missing beyond the top 1/3rd point. It was no wonder that repainting this woman was on the top of Frank's TO DO list shortly after this paperback was published. She was the only element in the painting that he repainted. The standing hero and the atmospheric blues and purples of the surrounding landscape all remained "as-is". Woman #2 was quite lovely with a beautiful face and a perfectly defined body with just-right lighting. Frazetta rendered her in moody cool colors but showed a lot more artistic sensitivity with her the 2nd time around and even added the fine finishing detail of an elaborate metallic headdress ornament for her dark hair. This successful repainting made its public debut in FRANK FRAZETTA: BOOK FOUR(1980) and was produced as a poster by Frazetta Prints.  

Unfortunately FF felt the need to tempt fate by repainting WITHERWING yet AGAIN at some unknown point of time. On the plus side he added some handsome Raw Sienna and Yellow Ochre impasto textures with a palette knife immediately adjacent to the hero's left foot for the rock formations. These warm earthy colors contrasted very favorably with the painting's overall bluish/purplish atmosphere. He also somewhat lightened the field of blue in the middle of the background which appears to be some sort of abstract fusion of sea waves and seashore mountainous land masses.

The figure of the woman was majorly lightened and brightened. While this change is fine, I preferred the deeper and richer colors of the woman in the 1st repainting. The fatal flaw that completely torpedos this 2nd repainting is the drastic change to woman's head and face. Her head goes from a lovely profile to a full front view. The highlighting on her face is inexplicably too white and too harsh. Even worse, her facial features are very unattractive. As a matter of fact she has the least attractive female face of any woman depicted in FF's complete catalog of paintings and drawings(not counting the real life figure drawings done in a classroom setting).

The failed final repainting made its public debut in TESTAMENT (2001) side-by-side with the far superior 1st repainting. Sad to say that 1st repainting no longer exists so treasure your reproductions of it. 

DAYS OF WRATH(1983)(oil painting)(copyright date 1983/VICTORIOUS(1986)(oil repainting1)(copyright date 1986)/(untitled)(date unknown)(oil repainting 2)/JAGUAR GOD 0 (1983/1995)(DAYS OF WRATH reproduction) + Simon Bisley oil repainting) 

If the law of diminishing returns generally applies to movie sequels it certainly also applies to this funky series of repaintings. 

The original DAYS OF WRATH was a prototype painting of the character Darkwolf from Frank's animated movie FIRE AND ICE (1983) done during the film's production. It might also have been an early contender for the F + I movie poster before Frazetta did the far more complex movie poster art for the film that we have all known and loved for the past 42 years. DOW has a relatively simple composition, but Frank painted it with a burst of energy and spontaneity that makes it look great. After all these years I still don't have a clue why FF thought it needed to be repainted. DOW made its public debut in Frank and Ellie's self published FRANK FRAZETTA: BOOK ONE(1996) where it was titled DAY OF WRATH(singular) and henceforth was called DAYS OF WRATH(plural) and was released as a poster from you-know-who. By this time the original was already repainted into VICTORIOUS. 

VICTORIOUS is quite unusual because Frazetta painted the substitute warrior figure as a pure monochromatic Raw Umber and white painting, although he does add some gold color to his helmet, some neutral grays to his axe blade and the 2 large wings attached to his helmet, and wood color to the axe handle. The only actual colors in this repainting are the colors in the background which were carried over verbatim from the DOW background which was unchanged here. To the best of my knowledge this is the only time FF combined a pure monochromatic painting AND a full color painting in the same image area. On paper it sounds like it shouldn't work but in this case it kind of does. Although this repainting was a clear step down from the original DOW it is still decent enough on its own terms. VICTORIOUS was 1st revealed to the general public in LEGACY (1999).

The untitled and undated 2nd repainting was not only the worst of this grouping but is also probably the very worst painting of Frank's entire career. At least 1 writer suggested that the main figure was supposed to be Conan, but this is hardly credible based on the visual evidence. This repainting is certainly best forgotten, but considering DOW was destroyed to create VICTORIOUS, and VICTORIOUS was destroyed to create THIS monstrosity it is hard to forget this final version. Or forgive it. Most likely Frank was physical ill when he did this repainting which explains its poor quality, really his worst painting EVER.  

The truly bizarre offshoot of this series was the decision to repurpose the DOW original as the cover for JAGUAR GOD 0 in 1995. This meant that Darkwolf's cowl and loincloth would need to be repainted to match the JG jaguar pattern outfit. For whatever reason Frazetta himself wasn't interested in doing this bit of repainting so he handed this thankless duty over to Simon Bisley who did the repainting with Frank's blessing. Since the DOW original no longer existed in 1995 Bisley did the repainted parts directly on a repro of DOW or on an additional clear acetate overlay. Besides doing the required costume changes Simon threw in some nice chromatic green bits in the foreground landscape and a creepy upraised hand from the ground that was a deliberate tribute and tip of of the hat to the likewise hand from FF's classic CONAN THE ADVENTURER(1966). Ironically this repainting was actually better than VICTORIOUS or (untitled) although still not as good as the original DOW. 

FIRE AND ICE(1983)(oil painting)(copyright date 1983)/FIRE AND ICE(date unknown)(oil repainting)

Frank's repainting of his classic FIRE AND ICE movie poster art was limited to Darkwolf's head, neck, and cowl. In the original the cowl is sort of a large solid black mass. For the repainting Frazetta carefully reduced and redrew the contours of the cowl improving the overall shaping and adding some cowl highlighting on its left side to coordinate with the lighting on Darkwolf's exposed lower face. At various points parts of the cowl are somewhat softened and put slightly out of focus to blend it in a little better with the surrounding background colors. Compared to the original cowl the eye slits are reduced and thinner. 

In the original painting the right side of Darkwolf's face and neck are covered in a dark shadow. For the repainting Frazetta adds a secondary light source so the neck and the right side of his face are now visible while still being at least somewhat in shadow(with a reddish tint) compared to the brighter highlights on the other side of his face. Darkwolf's savage mouth expression is made even more feral in the repainting with the addition of brighter individual teeth white highlights and more of a snarling mouth shape. 

As was the case with Frank's earlier repainting of CONAN THE ADVENTURER here he was taking a painting that was already 95% perfect and going the whole 9 yards to make it absolutely 100% perfect(or a perfect 10 on the Bo Derek scale). I consider CTA and F+ I not only as 2 of FF's very best paintings but also 2 of his finest repainting as well. All the repainting here only makes FIRE AND ICE even better and that is the whole point of doing a revision: to improve an existing work no matter how good it was before. 

My personal theory is that the beautiful F+I logo with its lovely modulating warm and cool colors was designed and painted by Frazetta personally. Although logo design and rendering is not something we would normally associate with Frank, he was clearly WAY out of his comfort zone while working on F+ I and doing a bunch of stuff he had never done before(and would never do again). It is fully believable and feasible that he would design and execute the logo himself for the greater good of the team that worked on this film. And if F + I is 1 of the greatest pieces of movie poster art in the history of cinema, then this logo is also right up there with the very finest film logos ever. This logo and the painting together are the most excellent marriage of lettering and visual image imaginable.