Category: Art

The Frank Frazetta Museum

  • June 22, 2024

We’re in Pennsylvania! We’re on our annual fireworks shopping trip but we extended it a day so we could visit the gallery of famed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta.

Frazetta was an illustrator that initially worked in comics before a career painting paperback book covers that would influence fantasy and science fiction artwork to this day.

Most of his paintings were oil on canvas, but he was a talented artist that also used pencils, watercolor and ink and painted on various canvases including masonite (as seen above).

The museum is on the property he lived at in The Poconos, and displays 37 original oil paintings as well as a large amount of sketches and other paraphernalia related to his life and career.

Frazetta painted covers for many Conan and Tarzan novels, and his artwork was so recognizable and iconic it sold the books. His depiction of Conan in particular was archetypal, and to this day the usual image of Conan is based on Frazetta’s depiction.

Anyone that’s read any fantasy or science fiction written since 1970 has likely held a book with a Frazetta cover, and it was quite a thrill to see the original art used on so many of these books. In the photo above you can see an original oil painting of a wizard menacing two warriors, and the same image used on the cover of a 1979 calendar and a paperback from the 1970s (which I own).

He often painted over his works, even after they had been used for book or magazine covers. He did this to change lightning, facial expressions, to add/remove elements (such as clothing) or for various other reasons. Looking at the paintings close up it was obvious where paint-overs had occurred, and the gallery often included photographs of the originals for comparison. In my opinion some paint-overs improved the works but others didn’t, and the fact that originals were lost forever is something I find a little sad.

Frazetta was well-known during his life, and such was his skill and renown that he worked extensively in advertising and in the movie industry as well. The museum had many relics regarding this part of his career, but the letters from Clint Eastwood (above, with his phone number!) and George Lucas (thanking him for selling a painting) were my favourite. There was also a signed letter from President Eisenhower, who Frazetta had done a portrait of.

Frazetta died in 2010 (at age 82) and his works were divided amongst his four children. The museum is primarily the collection of one of the children, which is to say it’s hardly the entirety of Frazetta’s works. As probably the worlds foremost fantasy artist his fame has only grown since his death, and recent sales of three of his paintings for over $5 million will put pressure on his surviving family to sell off his works. I hope the museum can resist the urge since we thought it was a wonderful gallery of his life and works, and very much a place any fan of fantasy art would enjoy visiting.

They had an amazing shop with all sorts of merchandise. We bought some books, two canvas prints and a few other items but the real treasure was the above still sealed 1979 calendar! When will I open it? No man knows 🙂

Enchanted

  • June 13, 2024

I walked from Ultraman Shopping Street north for about a half hour toward the nearby ward (or suburb) of Setagawa. My goal was a gallery to see a very special art exhibit, and I knew I was on the right track when signs began to appear on community notice boards:

By sheer providence I had seen a sign advertising this in a bookstore the other day. Junji Ito is one of my favourite manga creators, and I love his stories and his art, and to be honest he would have been at the top of my list had you asked who I’d like to see an exhibit of, so I was absolutely overjoyed to have a chance. But would it be good?

It was astonishingly good! This was a full blown exhibit of original art spanning his nearly 40-year horror manga career. There were dozens and dozens of pieces on display, photos were allowed, and we could get right up close to the works to admire their detail.

It was arranged chronologically, starting with Tomie and moving into Uzumaki and Gyo and his many short stories since. Almost all the original art – oils or watercolours – for the covers of his works were on display, as well as massive amounts of iconic manga pages.

Yes this is all his original work, not facsimiles or reprints; Hand drawn by him using inks and screen tone. Many are larger than the size they were printed, and it was fascinating to see how he created his work in detail.

Take the above for instance: the white lines on the top panel are actually painted on to a black background. And you can see white paint was used for the sound effects, which suggests they were added afterwards, over the art. Every black line is hand-inked, and the lightning appears to have been scratched (?) out of the tone used for the sky. In his comments that accompanied several of his example pieces, he mentions he doubts he could produce such detailed work today (he’s 60 now).

Much of the art was presented framed, but the gallery space itself was also wonderful designed and decorated to fit his work.

That’s the Uzumaki room, which contains many panels from the manga, as well as colour art for the covers and even early designs for characters or covers

As technology changed, so too did manga production, and most of it is digital now. Apparently Ito still works with traditional media (they had photos of his studio which didn’t look like it has changed much since the 1980s) and assistants touch up his line art digitally. Here’s a comparison from Hellstar Remina showing his original at bottom and after the tone is added digitally on top:

Those pages were very large, about newspaper sized each.

The exhibition included a lot of original oil or watercolour art pieces not created for particular manga stories, and the above one (look closely in the background) had a comment from Ito that when this was listed in a gallery years ago it didn’t sell but he thinks if he listed it again it would 🙂

For many years he was well known in Japan but a cult creator overseas. In the last five or so years his fame has exploded and he is now extremely successful worldwide. One room of the exhibit contained a dizzying selection of his publications in many different languages, and it was mentioned he’s been selling about half a million copies a year in the USA for several years now.

One room contained work he created as a child or while in high school! This was also the room that featured his famous cat manga (which he wrote about his experiences of adopting cats with his wife). The art in those books – which portrays cats in his distinctive style – is wonderful:

There was also this prototype figure made especially for the exhibit:

And this copy of the first manga monthly he ever had a story in:

I hate to reduce this man’s prodigious talent down to something base, but I just kept thinking about the fact that this exhibit of dozens upon dozens of iconic and extremely talented original manga art and paintings must now be worth a fortune. A quick search online shows that small sketches of his have sold for $3000+ in recent years so I can’t imagine what something like this painting could go for:

I can’t overstate how much I enjoyed this exhibit. I have two shelves of his work at home, and have been reading him since long before he became well known in the USA. It was a privilege to be able to see so much of his original work, and to read about their inspirations in his own words.

This was probably the highlight of this entire trip 🙂

  • Posted in Art
  • Robert

Let’s Talk About Stamps

  • June 9, 2024

This post is dedicated to Sue, who (I think) wanted me to send her an eki stamp, and this gave me the idea to blog about rubber stamps!

eki stamps are rubber stamps available at virtually every train or transport station in Japan. Travelers can put these stamps into a stamp book as a record of their journeys, and they are very commonly collected. The first few times we’ve visited Japan we’ve done just this, but in recent trips I usually just put them on a postcard if I have one handy.

The above photo shows the two stamps available at Kinugawa station, and the imprint of the Tobu (as opposed to Metro) Asakusa station stamp.

Eki stamps are so popular in Japan that many other attractions including shopping centers and amusement parks have them as well. Both Tobu World Square and Edo Wonderland had them, but I didn’t have a postcard on me to collect the imprint.

Sometimes time-limited stamps exist to promote tourism or attract customers. An example of this is currently underway in Kinugawa: there are six demon statues around town, and next to each is a little wooden ‘house’ containing a stamp. The idea is to have fun finding all demons and collecting the six stamps. I found four in my wanderings, and put the stamps on postcards.

Another example are six bookstores around Tokyo currently having rubber stamps for the manga Frieren available free to use, and the sign next to them humorously says each time you use one you unlock a fast travel to that bookstore. These stamps are very cute, and I got one in January and another today. I wonder where the other four are?

Another common use of stamps is for a type of bingo or treasure hunt, and there’s one going on right now in Akihabara. Nine stamps related to the series Quintessential Quintuplets are available at various shops in Akihabara, and if you stamp them on the (free) bingo card you can get prizes. This is of course a way to get customers into shops, and it’s clever since 5 stamps are free but the other 4 require you to buy something. So everyone can get at least one free prize (a sticker) but if you spend money in the shops you can end up getting much more.

If you read yesterday’s blog post you will also remember the maze also used rubber stamps as a record of completion, which is the same basic idea.

Of course all these rubber stamps can be used to stamp anything you like, and reports say a handsome and wise young Australian was seen today putting one of the Quintuplet bingo stamps onto a postcard…

And then there’s this incredible rubber stamp at the reception in my hotel. It’s a three-colour design created by successive application of three different stamps. A plastic guide is provided to make sure the three align, and I’m sure you’ll agree it looks great! While using the stamp is free, it’s actually an advertisement, and you can order your own (in multiple designs with whatever text you like) for only $200!

You may have guessed with all the talk of mad postcard stamp applications, but some of you will be getting a card with a stamp on it. I’ll let you wonder which one, but so far it’s not the hotel one since it’s specific to this hotel rather than a place and I’m not sure you’d be interested. But it’s so cool if you want it, just text me or leave a comment (and don’t delay for obvious reasons).