Creepy #17 1967

Frank Frazetta made this cover for *Creepy* comic book using paint and imagination. The color here is like a furnace – all oranges and reds. The paint is thick and juicy, and you can see the strokes, the way he’s wrestling with the image. It's all about the surface, a real back-and-forth between the artist and the canvas. Look at the way the executioner is rendered, all brawn and shadow, standing there with that axe, blood still dripping from it. It's dramatic, right? I think Frazetta is an interesting character, because if you look at someone like R. Crumb, there are similarities in terms of the male figure and the female figure. Both are really important comic artists who have different approaches and are dealing with the world around them in different ways. For Frazetta, it’s all about the visceral, the raw emotion, and that comes through in every brushstroke. Art is not just about what you see, but how it makes you feel, what it makes you think.