Frazetta—A Warrior Born

By S.C. Ringgenberg

Frank Frazetta and Steve Ringgenberg

(Comic book writer, historian and journalist, Steve Ringgenberg, talked with Frank Frazetta about his life and career more than anyone else.)  

Although Frank Frazetta was never in the military, and never even joined a gang, he grew up tough as nails and lived from early on like a warrior, sometimes battling overwhelming odds simply to survive, and later, to realize his artistic visions. And like his hero Frank Sinatra, Frazetta always did it his way.

      As Frazetta himself recounted in an autobiographical essay in The Burroughs Bulletin #29 (1973), he was very much a product of his environment: “The neighborhood I lived in grew progressively worse. Gang wars and violence were common everyday occurrences. I found myself an active participant in many such incidents. Being the sensitive type, I could never accept being bullied by what I considered a lower element and soon found myself smashing a few noses here and there. You would be amazed how nice those punks can become when the right psychology is applied. The reputation I gained in those days is something I’d much rather forget, though I cannot deny that I took more pride in my physical prowess in those days than in my ability as an artist. In high school, I ran the hundred-yard dash in under 10 seconds, did the running broad jump at 20 feet and the standing broad jump at 10 feet, held the school record for chinning and pushups on the parallel bars, performed 10 legitimate one-arm chins (can still do a few), had the fastest time climbing the rope in both the “L” and “V” positions, and won a bet with the manager of the high school baseball team when I threw a baseball more than 400 feet!”

As a lifelong admirer of his work, I submit that one of the things that makes Frazetta’s paintings so viscerally effective is not just the artist’s own passionate, sometimes volatile personality, but also his powerful physicality. Unlike many artists who are gentle, retiring types, Frazetta was always tremendously physical, and when he wasn’t painting, was always in motion, golfing, playing softball or baseball, bowling, doing shooting sports, or playing with his kids. As long-time pal and fellow Fleagle Nick Meglin pointed out, “When Frazetta goofed off, he goofed off with gusto!” However, when a deadline was breathing down his neck (which was often, since Frazetta would always rather be playing sports instead of working), he was capable of total concentration, staying at the drawing board until the job was finished. Though Frazetta’s work was often bashed out at the last minute, it somehow added to the excitement, the urgency each piece conveyed. He very rarely depicted placid scenes of landscapes or anything peaceful. His remarkable skill as an artist, I feel, was enhanced by his strength and physical virtuosity. He could imbue action scenes with a power other artists could rarely capture. The key to the power of his portraits of warriors and barbarians was movement, and an almost uncanny knack for capturing the moment of peak action.

While Frazetta did scores of paintings for book covers, he’s most famous for two characters, Conan the Barbarian, and The Death Dealer. Dissatisfied with the way Conan was depicted in the first Conan the Barbarian film (1982), made about a decade and a half after his first cover came out, Frazetta had definite ideas about what Conan should look like, as he revealed in a 1984 interview conducted at the first Frazetta Museum.

RINGGENBERG: Where are you going to find someone who looks like your Conan?

FRAZETTA: I'll find him…I grew up with guys like that. Believe me, people are looking in the wrong places. They look in the gym. I don't look in the gym. I'd find the right neighborhood with guys that look like that just because of what they eat, and there are guys like that, the scars, the works. Nasty…but I knew guys like that if you saw them just come after you, boy, you'd just cut across the street. Bruisers… prize fighters. Some big heavyweight who's been around could be closer to Conan than some of the actors that have played him. I mean weightlifters are cute and all that, but that’s stuff and nonsense. I want a guy who can knock down an oak tree with one swing of an axe. And there are guys like that, incredible strength, brutes, animals.

RINGGENBERG: What did you think of Schwarzenegger as Conan?

FRAZETTA: He's a nice guy and a Frazetta fan and all that, but he's not a bruiser, he's not a killer, right? Let's face it…”

            Since it first appeared on the cover of Flashing Swords #1, Frazetta’s iconic Death Dealer has taken on a life of its own, spawning a series of novels, comic books, action figures, t-shirts, and a whole galaxy of spin-off products. Indeed, the character has infiltrated the American zeitgeist so much that the U.S. Army adopted The Death Dealer as a kind of mascot, with a larger than life-sized mounted statue of the character installed in the lobby of the Army’s III Corps Headquarters at Ft. Hood, Texas, and on various patches issued to the troops. DD was even painted on the nose of a B-52 bomber christened “Death Dealer”. And these are not Frazetta’s only connections with the U.S. military. Frazetta’s iconic “Destroyer” painting, a repaint of his cover for Conan the Buccaneer, was also used as a unit shoulder patch. All of which points to Frazetta’s enduring appeal as an artist who embodies the warrior spirit, both in his life, and in his vast oeuvre.

Death Dealer VII

© 2025 S.C. Ringgenberg