Posted By Dan Greenfield on Feb 9, 2024 | 2 comments

A BIRTHDAY SALUTE: The late, great fantasy artist was born 96 years ago…

By PAUL KUPPERBERG

The Ace Books “F-series” line of paperbacks from 1961 to 1967 was amazing. It was the pulp fiction literature equivalent to [Insert Your Favorite Streaming Service]! Their science fiction and fantasy author list included Anthony Boucher, Andre Norton, Leigh Brackett, A.E. van Vogt, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Donald A. Wolheim, Clifford Simak, Philip K. Dick, and many others.

They also boosted a solid line-up of illustrators who created eye-catching covers for these little 40¢ gems that filled the spinner racks and bookshelves, foremost among them the artist whose birthday we celebrate, Frank Frazetta (February 9, 1928 – May 10, 2010).

I loved the Ace Books of that era. I was 11 years old in 1966 when my father brought home a couple of the Tarzan books by Burroughs that someone had left behind in the break room at the company where he worked. I pounced on those books, devouring the stories in Son of Tarzan and Jungle Tales of Tarzan and feasting on the brilliant covers by an artist whose style I already recognized from the Warren Publishing magazines my older brother owned.

Between Ace, Warren, and whatever other markets he was servicing at the time, Frazetta must have been cranking these paintings out at a terrific pace, but each piece was better than the one before it. As a kid, I thought there had to be magic in his paint brushes to achieve the effects and raw power he would lay down on those canvases. I’m guessing he was probably paid hundreds of dollars per painting at the time. In the current market, they routinely sell for millions.

I don’t have to blather on about what a genius Frank Frazetta was. From his early comics work for Standard and Dell Comics, his time as Al Capp’s assistant on L’il Abner, through to his career as a commercial artist creating images for book covers, record albums (for Roy Orbison, Nazareth, and Molly Hatchet), and movie posters (What’s New Pussycat; Yours, Mine and Ours; Fire and Ice), the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame, Jack Kirby Hall of Fame, Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Album Cover Hall of Fame, and Inkwell Awards Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame inductee left behind a body of work that speaks for itself.

Here then, My 13 FAVORITE FRANK FRAZETTA 1960s ACE PAPERBACK COVERS:

Tarzan and the Lost Empire (1962)

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Tarzan the Invincible (1963)

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The Beasts of Tarzan (1963)

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The Son of Tarzan (1963)

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Jungle Tales of Tarzan (1963)

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Tarzan and the Lion Man (1963)

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The Lost Continent (1963)

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Carson of Venus (1963)

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Lost on Venus (1963)

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Savage Pellucidar (1964)

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The Mad King (1964)

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A Princess of Mars (1964)

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Land of Terror (1964)

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MORE

— NEAL ADAMS AND FRANK FRAZETTA: Creative Powerhouses Forever in Competition. Click here.

— THE DEATH DEALER: Frazetta in His Own Words. Click here.

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PAUL KUPPERBERG was a Silver Age fan who grew up to become a Bronze Age comic book creator, writer of Superman, the Doom Patrol, and Green Lantern, creator of Arion Lord of Atlantis, Checkmate, and Takion, and slayer of Aquababy, Archie, and Vigilante. He is the Harvey and Eisner Award nominated writer of Archie Comics’ Life with Archie, and his YA novel Kevin was nominated for a GLAAD media award and won a Scribe Award from the IAMTW. Now, as a Post-Modern Age gray eminence, Paul spends a lot of time looking back in his columns for 13th Dimension and in books such as Direct Conversations: Talks with Fellow DC Comics Bronze Age Creators and Direct Comments: Comic Book Creators in Their own Words.

You can support the Kickstarter for his latest project, Direct Creativity: The Creators Who Inspired the Creators. Click here.