Thank you, Mr. Frazetta for bringing our fantasies to life

You've doubtless heard by now that esteemed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta has died. He is the artist by which all other fantasy artists are measured. His work is instantly recognizable and even before his death had begun to fetch vast sums of money on the art market.

I can say that a painting by him on an Ace edition of an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel that I saw in a bargain bin in Woolco decades ago is what made me discover that author which became one of my favourites. I later learned the artist's name and have admired his work ever since.

To give you a feel for Frazetta's work, here's one of the better collections of images of his that you can find online. While most people are familiar with his colourful cover art, his fine pen and ink illustrations are equally powerful.

Compare the art Frazette created, using old-fashioned oils and ink, to some of today's top science fiction art, all of which was created in Photoshop. Those images are nice and surely required a lot of patience and skill to create, but I'll take old-fashioned works created by hand any day. Is anyone going to pay $1 million for a printout from a digital file in the future? I have my doubts.

Since I'm talking art, I've got these two wallpaper links sitting on my clipboard, so I'll dump them here for you to explore more fantastic images.