I hereby declare Chuck to be one of the three most enjoyable TV shows I’ve ever watched. Is the series ridiculous? Of course it is. But is it excellent? Funny? And very smart? Absolutely.
(Sheesh. Look at that. The episode was available when I embedded it Friday night, and it’s already gone.)
(No! Wait! It’s back!)
(No! It’s gone again!)
The giant of fantasy illustration is gone. Frank Frazetta, one of the most influential and imitated commercial artists of the 20th century, a singular and unique force in his craft, died Monday.
From comic book stories, to ghosting L’il Abner Sunday strips, to magnificent paintings for paperback book covers, Frazetta set a standard of such high caliber that, although he may have had contemporaries, he had no peers.
Figure drawing. For Frazetta, that was the thing. He loved drawing men and women. The human form, imbued with an innate fierceness, and an undeniable animal sexuality. Sometimes he drew the inhumanly human form!
Let the work speak for itself. First, some pencil drawings. A quick sketch done for a friend, using a pencil stub on cheap paper…
… and a couple of tightly-rendered samples for Flash Gordon.
Next, here are some works in pen and ink. A sketch for a John Carter of Mars book cover…
… and a Johnny Comet Sunday comic strip.
Finally, what Frazetta is known for best. His oil paintings. Two Conan the Barbarian paperback book covers…
…and higher-quality scans of the paintings. You’ll definitely want to click these to enlarge. Note the changes that Frazetta made to the original version of Conan the Buccaneer.
The original for the painting on the left, for Conan the Conquerer, sold last year for $1 million.
I have high hopes for ‘The Lost Skeleton Returns Again’, the sequel to ‘The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra’, an exquisitely funny and intelligent homage to cheapie 60’s sci-fi movies. If ‘Returns Again’ is even half as good as its predecessor, I will enjoy it immensely. Click here to watch ten samples from the new movie, which should be out on DVD to see the light of my projector’s bulb sometime this summer.
Larry Blamire, the creator of ‘Lost Skeleton’, has Boston fan roots going back to the 70’s. I happen to have a 1979 issue of ‘Galileo, the Magazine of Science Fiction’, with a story illustration by Blamire. I wonder if he still feels a connection to this, or if it seems far from where his interests are now?
If you’re a fan of ‘Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog’, Bismo points out this cute 8-bit game adaptation of the first part, up to the point where Captain Hammer throws Penny into the garbage. Click “NEW GAME” or watch this vidcap on YouTube.
I certainly have my complaints about the second trilogy of “Star Wars” movies, but some fans are seriously unhappy with what George Lucas did with his lucrative franchise.
When “Star Wars” came out in 1977, Carrie Fisher’s mother, Debbie Reynolds — an eclipsed star from the bygone era of classic Hollywood — was 45.
