Free Republic

Just because a character has been around forever doesn’t mean there aren’t new ways to reimagine it. Damon Hellandbrand, a talented artist based in the U.S., has created a series of images that portray the symbols of the zodiac as twisted, surreal creatures straight out of a nightmarish realm. Hellandbrand does much of his art with various digital illustration programs, but some are born as pencil drawings or watercolors – or “basically whatever medium I’m in the mood for.” He writes that he is inspired by artists like Ralph McQuarrie, Boris Vallejo and Frank Frazetta, and it’s easy to imagine...

Frank Frazetta's original 1955 artwork for Weird Science-Fantasy #29, considered by many comic art fans to be the finest comic book cover of all time, has been sold in a private treaty sale for $380,000 – almost certainly the most ever paid for a single piece of original American comic book art – to Heritage Co-Chairman and Co-Founder Jim Halperin, a collector known to own one of the finest comic book and original comic art collections in the world. It was an outright purchase for immediate payment, with no trade-ins involved. "Knowing I'm a huge Frazetta fan, and a...

Frank Frazetta, the great painter of fantasy book covers, has died. The artist, most closely associated with Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Barbarian" character, was the subject of the 2003 documentary "Frazetta: Painting With Fire." After a series of strokes, Frazetta trained himself to paint using his left hand. His signature work often featured bare-chested "sword and sorcery" heroes, helpless women and fantasy creatures. His paintings often sell in the million-dollar range. Frazetta was 82