FRANK FRAZETTA

Master fantasy artist, Frank Frazetta, died today at the age of 82. Frazetta was the greatest and most influential fantasy artist of all time. He inspired all who came after him. He is a household name, and people recognize his style everywhere. He's an icon. If you dream at all, you know Frazetta.

I started selling comics at the San Jose flea market, back in the late 1970s. Like everywhere else, Frazetta influence was all pervasive. I often sold near a stand that provided airbrushed custom art on vans. The vans lined up all day, and they all wanted the same thing. They wanted some bad-ass Frazetta art on their ride. I would always stop by and admire the various renderings throughout the day.


What could say "If this van's rockin' don't come knocking" better than this beauty?

The Flea Market was in bloom in the hot summer months. He-men strode around in their tank-tops in the mid-day sun. Many of them had tattoos. Guess who the most popular artist was, and probably still is, when it comes to tough-guy tattoos?


Would you want to mess with the owner of this arm?
His tattoo, alone, could kick your timid ass!

I quickly came to the conclusion that all guys think that they are Frazetta characters. It didn't matter if they were a Hell's Angel or a math teacher, inside was the heart of a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth. A guy that won't back down when things get rough. Somehow Frazetta had gotten in to each man's head, and had understood the underpinnings of his soul. Frazetta was as popular as beer.

The parodists caught on to this universal longing inside the common man to be a Frazetta character.


This is by Boris, but it's an obvious Frazetta parody.
Just like everything else by Boris.

What action movie star would not want to be depicted by the great Frazetta?


They've messed with the wrong guy.


What better way to let heavy metal fans know that you mean business than with this bad-ass cover!

When I think about it, Frazetta's art was so powerful, so potent, that it was almost a sacred thing. It was surely the best part of anything it was attached to. No matter how many great artists there were in an issue of Creepy, or Eerie, NOBODY could beat the Frazetta cover. I've never listened to Molly Hatchet, but boy is that cover beautiful. Their music couldn't possibly be as good as that cover. Frazetta was almost too good for the world he inhabited, but he surely elevated it. He wrote a brand new visual language that lives on everywhere.

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY

Free Comic Book Day was an absolute smash! It was one of our busiest days ever. It was a beautiful, bright, sunny day, and families and groups of people were coming in waves all day long. The store was also packed, and there was a line at the register most of the day. Even though we increased our orders on the free comic books, they were completely gone by 5 pm. Next year, we'll order even more. We estimate that over a thousand people showed up at each Lee's Comics location. Apparently these free comics are catching on! Who knew?

I brought my daughter Hannah, age 14 to the event. She made this terrific video. Make sure to check it out!

The Top Seven Comics Creators who can KICK YOUR ASS

Modern-day Houdini Jim Steranko.

Here's a great blog post about real-life kick-ass, macho, he-man comics creators from comics lunatic Ty Templeton. Warning, it's not suggested for sissies, or people who drink their tea with upraised pinkies. The line up of brawlers Includes "Jaunty" Jim Steranko, and Jack "King" Kirby. The only serious omission is Daredevil artist David Mack, who I've personally seen doing all the moves that Daredevil does in the comics.

GENESIS!

This one is brilliant! You've got to check it out. It's Genesis, the band, by R. Crumb as imagined by Ward Sutton.

Make sure to check out all 11 pages!

Link.

WANDER CON

This is the first Wonder Con that I have not set up a booth at.

I headed to San Francisco with my friend Mark Arnold. I met up at the Convention with my son, and his girlfriend. My goal was to hand out some flyers for my store, so I deputized my group. After we handed out a box full, the powers that be informed me that handing out flyers in the building was forbidden. I complied with them, and stopped handing flyers out. We went upstairs for a while, and then went across the street and hung out at Starbucks, where we chatted, looked at the program schedule and had some snacks. Rather than sit in a long line, and activity I try to avoid at all times, I figured that we could just cruise in a little after opening time, like civilized people and get right in. That strategy worked like a charm!


The staging area on Friday.


We managed to hand out flyers to most of the people here until the powers that be converged on us.


Here's the view from above.


Here I am with Bob Schreck one of the greatest comics impresarios in history.


Here I meet up with the Devil. He goes by the name of Robert Rhine, when he travels above ground. He puts out a magazine for his subjects called "Girls and Corpses". I haven't yet made a pact with him, but I'm thinking it over!


Here's the legendary Joe Kubert, one of the greatest comic book artists in history! I love his Sgt. Rock and Enemy Ace. What a terrific artist!


The highlight of the show for me was definitely the Stan and Hunter Freberg panel, hosted by Mark Evanier. If you are a comedy or animation fan, you already know about Stan Freberg. I didn't know as much about his work producing television commercials. They played some samples, including a fussy Englishman who hated prunes, and Ann Miller dancing on a Coffee can. The audience loved them. I would love to see more of these. The stories that Stan and Hunter told about making these were hilarious. I'll have to see if there's a DVD collection of these.


There were plenty of people there in costume. I think it's great. It makes it costume optional masquerade party.


Here's my boy, Lee 4 clowning around with his pal, the great Matt Wagner of Mage and Grendel fame.




Here's the great artist, Art Adams, with his lovely and gracious wife, Mrs Art Adams.


Here I am with Mimi Cruz and her cousin. Mimi runs one of the best comic book stores on earth, Night Flight comics in Salt Lake city.


Here are the nutty guys behind the great comic-centric rock band "Kirby Crackle".


Here's my pal, Dapper Dave Downey, proprietor of World's Best Comics in Sacramento. To the shock of all, he has actually dained to bring some comics to the comic book convention!


Here are the fine folks at the Flesk Publications booth. Master artist Mark Schultz of Xenozoic Tales fame is on the right.


There was no paucity of movie-type stuff on the floor. This one at least has origins as a comic book.


I'm not sure what this one was.


Random crowd scenes, within and without.






The artist for Boom Comics' Toy Story. Unfortunately I didn't write down any names.


Here I am with my buddy, Barry Borras. Barry has an amazing collection of collection of Toys and Comics.


Saturdays highlight was the Mark and Sergio show. I was luck to get in as it was completely sold out, and standing room only.


Here is best selling author Max Brooks. I just found out that he is the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft!


I invited my friend Walter Fields to the show, and he came on Saturday. Here is Walter, Mark Arnold, Lee 4 and Me. Goodbye Wonder Con. A great time was had by all!

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

There's a terrific article in today's San Jose Mercury News. It's called "Graphic novels' growing appeal." The picture above ran with the article, and I'm quoted in it, but don't let that stop you from reading it.

I'm the most happy about how the the article promotes quality graphic novels. The author, Randy Myers really knows his stuff, and has excellent taste in literate works such as Maus, Persepolis and Blankets. He also mentions popular and compelling ones such as Watchmen, Y: The Last Men, and The Walking Dead. This is one of the best articles that I've seen promoting the kind of Graphic novels that I love the most.

I hope that this article inspires some new readers to try graphic novels.
This article has certainly inspired me, and I intend to start a display of the recommended graphic novels it in my store.

THE DEAN OF AVATAR

No, not a production painting for Avatar, but a vintage Roger Dean painting.

I saw the movie Avatar over the weekend. I enjoyed it, especially for it's beautiful vision of an exotic alien world. Throughout it all, I had the feeling that I had seen many of the images before. At last, it came to me. I had seen those vistas in the work of fantasy artist Roger Dean, famous for his album covers for Yes, and other groups. When I first started buying record albums back in the early 1970s, I loved the group Yes, and would spend hours gazing at the incredible worlds he created for the covers. He seemed to be everyone's favorite fantasy artist in those days, rivaled only by Frank Frazetta. Roger Dean is not mentioned in the credits of Avatar, but there are plenty of people online, as it turns out, that feel he might have helped inspire the visuals for this movie.

If you want to see more of Mr. Dean's fabulous paintings, check here.


Another vintage Roger Dean painting.