NOTES ON KRENKEL AND FRAZETTA COVER ART BY BOB BARRETT
From corresondence with Robert Zeuschner
Frank Frazetta and Roy Krenkel did not, I repeat, DID NOT revise any of
their paintings for the Ace Books covers. Any paintings that Frazetta
revised were revised because he felt that he could improve the figures.
He never revised a painting to change the coloring; that just never happened.
Also Frazetta only revised paintings that were returned to him. Only
his later covers for Ace were returned, but he didn't revise any of them.
Several of his early Ace Burroughs covers are hanging on a wall at ERB,
Inc., given to the corporation by Don Wollheim when Ace and ERB, Inc. came
to terms about reprinting Burroughs. Russ Cochran purchased
Roy Krenkel's covers from Ace and later sold them all to a single collector
-- whose name he won't divulge. A couple of other early Frazetta
Ace covers were presented as door prizes at the World Science Fiction Convention
and at least one was traded back to Frazetta for another painting.
The cover painting for JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN is at ERB, Inc.
The original of A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS is in my own collection. I
furnished David Spurlock with a transparency of the painting for use in
THE ART OF ROY G. KRENKEL and I don't know why the colors are so bright
in the book, since the original painting is not nearly that bright.
The later Ace reprint of THE MAD KING (very blue in color) was printed
from a quick recreation of the painting because, after borrowing the original
painting from Ace, Frazetta didn't want to give it back (the bluish coloring
is because of the photographic printing process). The cover for the
later Ace edition of SAVAGE PELLUCIDAR was originally a painting that Frazetta
did for the movie, LUANA. Because of his tight deadline Frazetta
felt he didn't have time to paint a new painting so he revised the movie
poster painting taking out the black panther and replacing it with a sabretooth
tiger. Late in his life Frazetta did paint a recreation of his original
Ace cover for THE LOST CONTINENT for himself.
The only Frazetta painting that some hack in the Ace Books office retouched
is THE MONSTER MEN. Don Wollheim was bothered by the cleavage on
the girl and had the hack poorly cover it up with a dab of red paint.
The original still features the desecration!
Just because a particular scan or printing of a painting exhibits color
differences, doesn't mean that they were repainted or revised. It
is merely due to the differences in scanning or printing methods.
I discussed Frazetta's Burroughs covers with him on several occasions
and he answered all of my questions freely.
I hope that what I have written is of some help. Use as much of
what I have written as you wish -- all or some of it.