While I agree with Frank that his CAT GIRL repainting is much better than the original CREEPY 16 cover painting I am by no means anywhere near as dismissive of the original painting as he was. I still think the first painting was pretty wonderful. It is an exercise in nihilism to paint over a lesser masterpiece to merely provide a painting surface for a greater masterpiece. Since the CAT GIRL repainting was a 100% repaint it should have been painting on a second canvas board with the original cover painting receiving a well deserved reprieve as a valuable compositional variant on the same theme.  Two CAT GIRL paintings would have been better than only one! 

 

There is a well known story of the first (and only) visit to the Frazetta home by movie producer Dino De Laurentiis that happened at some point in the 2nd half of the 1970s. Reportedly Dino immediately fell in love with CAT GIRL repainting when he 1st laid eyes on it and offered Frazetta one million dollars to buy it. Frank turned him down. I'm not absolutely sure if this account is totally true or just another urban legend, but if it is not true, it SHOULD be. The real life scenario of the USA's top artist inadvertently telling the super-rich and super-privileged movie mogul to get stuffed is mighty good chicken soup for the soul. As a co-worker of mine once joked in the early 1980s: "I hate to say I don't need the money, but I DON'T NEEED THE MONEY!" Frank didn't need Dino's money...what he needed was to keep his beloved CAT GIRL repainting close to home. There has been some perhaps reasonable speculation that Dino's very obvious and ongoing animosity toward Frazetta from that point onward was rooted in his annoyance that Frank refused to sell him the CAT GIRL repainting. 

  

Creepy 16 (aka CAT GIRL) (date unknown) (oil repainting) (copyright date 1984) 

Frazetta has gone on the record that the CAT GIRL repainting is his personal favorite among his vast painting catalog and the one he feels best sums up his artistic approach, style, and subject matter(kind of like NORTH BY NORTHWEST(1959) was for Alfred Hitchcock). Considering this, it is a mystery why Frank waited until the relatively late date of 1985 to finally unveil this all-important painting to the general public for the 1st time in FRANK FRAZETTA: BOOK FIVE.

 

I don't interpret the 1984 copyright date as definitive proof that Frazetta did the CAT GIRL repainting in 1984. More likely Frank and Ellie compiled the contents for FRANK FRAZETTA: BOOK FIVE as early as 1984 and he used the then-current year of 1984 as the copyright date. I'm not a betting man, but my gut instinct tells me Frazetta probably did the CAT GIRL repainting sometime in the first half of the 1970s(and I have no way of actually PROVING that beyond a shadow of a doubt).  

While the 1st 4 Frazetta art books were closely tied in to the contemporaneous Frazetta Prints poster business it is extremely odd that NONE of the paintings that appeared in FRANK FRAZETTA: BOOK FIVE were produced as posters at the time of this book's publication. Ultimately 4 paintings from the book became posters(including the CAT GIRL repainting) but that only happened some years down the line.    

  

Comparing the 2 paintings, the hero and the large green snake enveloping him in the foreground and the snake-headed statue in the middle ground are practically identical in both paintings, although very close observation reveals some subtle differences(most notably the design pattern of the hero's armored wristbands are somewhat altered). 

The tiny figure of the wizard has been reduced to a couple of very well designed abstract shapes as opposed to the more overt skullface wizard of the original. 

On the pillar next to the wizard's left hand Frank adds an abstract spot of red which harmonizes in a lovely way with the red on the hero's sword with the 2 reds contrasting very nicely with the green of the snake. 

  

Although the original GD was an undisputed masterpiece, the repainting is an improvement in every way...therefore it must be put on the short list of Frazetta's very best repaintings(even though it is also one of the smallest). 

  

Much of the confusion about the 12 x 12 GD repainting over the decades was due to it being mislabeled(and even misunderstood) by 2 major Frazetta art books. Shortly after Frank did the repainting in 1980 it appeared in a relatively small half page repro in FRANK FRAZETTA: BOOK FOUR(1980) where a caption mislabeled it as a: Sketch. LEGACY(1999) fell even further down this misinformation sinkhole by calling this repainting: An initial oil rough and then giving it the way-incorrect creation date of 1968. As anyone with 2 eyes and a brain in their skull can plainly see, this 12 x 12 repainting is just as much of a finished painting as the 16 x 20 original. This was very obviously no "sketch" and surely no "initial oil rough".

  

WOLFSHEAD(aka GREEN DEATH(2))(1980)(oil repainting)

WOLFSHEAD (aka GREEN DEATH) (1980) watercolor prelim)

CONAN THE AVENGER(1968)(oil painting)/CONAN THE AVENGER(aka SACRIFICE)(1980)(oil repainting)(copyright date 1980)

In Frank's cover art for CONAN THE AVENGER the painting of Conan has a lot working against him: a daft looking helmet, a doofus facial expression, and swinging arms in an ape-like positioning. Frank was right when he said the 1980 repainting of this Conan figure was greatly improved, although I always thought Conan #2 looked a bit like an underdressed football player(not that there's anything WRONG with that!).

   CONAN THE AVENGER(aka SACRIFICE)(1980)(oil repainting)(copyright date 1980)

THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKYS(1968)(watercolor painting)/THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKYS(1968)(watercolor revision paste ups)

If you take a look at Frank's subgenre of movie poster art it is quite obvious that United Artists was his most frequent employer. He did far more movie poster art jobs for UA as compared to any other movie studio. To the best of my knowledge THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKYS was the one and only time UA censored or interfered with Frazetta's art, but in this particular case they went WAY overboard. It is pretty easy to view UA as the villains in this situation. Not only did they have the unmitigated audacity to ask Frank to further cover up his already tastefully rendered burlesque women, but they also gave him a ridiculously long list of actors and actresses they wanted added, deleted, substituted, or altered from Frazetta's original painting.

As always Frank was a pro and complied with all of UA's many unreasonable demands, most likely keeping in mind the extra large paycheck he would earn in the end for this piece of movie poster art.

There is plenty of visual evidence that Frazetta's original uncensored painting for TNTRM has survived over the years and that he did not do any repainting or revisions directly on the original art piece.

Taking into account that the published art seen on the movie poster and accompanying soundtrack album cover is a sort of 50/50 split between the original painting and the boatload of revisions, I have come up with a plausible theory of how Frank(perhaps with the assistance of a UA production artist) accomplished this hybrid image without destroying the original:

 

 

1. Frazetta painted the revised actors/actresses and the censorship bits and pieces in watercolor on separate pieces of paper.
2. A clear acetate sheet was placed over the original painting.
3. Frank(or the UA production artist) carefully cut out and trimmed the revision and censorship pieces and pasted them up over the appropriate areas on the clear acetate sheet.
4. This hybrid painting was photographed for reproduction.
5. After reproduction photography the acetate overlay sheet was removed and most likely discarded.
6. The uncensored original art was either retained by UA or returned to Frank and Ellie.

Generally speaking movie companies kept the original art done for their movie posters. This bothered Frazetta but he saw it as an acceptable tradeoff for the substantially higher paychecks he got for movie poster art compared to the much lower fees he was more regularly earning for the book and magazine covers that were his artistic bread and butter. 

The uncensored painting of TNTRM received its public debut 10 years after the movie release in FRANK FRAZETTA: BOOK THREE(1978).