So this Frazetta guy can really paint, huh? This is Frank Frazetta: Book Two (1977). When I posted the first volume a while back, I copped to not really understanding Frazetta’s appeal for many years. Now that I do, I look back and truly wonder what was wrong with my brain. Frazetta rocks. You don’t need me to tell you that, or list the reasons why.

Let’s just hit the highlights. First, Book Two has some pretty spectacular butts. I haven’t counted, but my impression that the butt content here is significantly higher that Book One. Second, I really enjoy how Conan’s helmet has a little foot on top so it can easily double as a drinking cup. Third, in my memory, Frazetta paintings are uniformly dark hued, generally brown, so whenever I actually look at them and see the strange mixes of colors, I get a little shock. This is particularly apparent in the Mars paintings. Also, I love how totally fucking audacious he could be sometimes. Imagine painting that downed rocket ship and purposely just showing us the back of the monster. A mind boggling decision most artists could not pull off.

And, I won’t say it is bad, because it isn’t. It is beautiful. But wrong. Beautifully wrong, I guess. I’m talking about that amazing misread of the fight between the Witch-King and Eowyn from Return of the King. In fact, I bet you didn’t realize that was what it is supposed to be until I told you. I know pretty much no one in a Frazetta painting wears pants, but for Eowyn, that is still a bizarre choice to me.