Way back in 1975, when I was a college freshman, Ian and Betty Ballantine visited my university to give a talk about publishing fantasy and science fiction. In particular, they were there to promote Betty’s latest project, The Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta. This was catnip to a young nerd who was already playing Dungeons & Dragons, so of course I attended. So did two other people. It was embarrassingly poorly attended.
To my advantage, though — she just gave out pages from the book, and poster-sized prints of the art from the book, so we got all this wall art for our rooms, in addition to stories about Frazetta and the publishing industry. I had a poster of Vampirella!
I lost my nerve and didn’t tack it up in my dorm room — it was just a little too wild and racy.
And now I learn that Frazetta was fond of reworking his paintings, even after he’d sold them for pulp magazine covers, and that he’d updated Vampirella. The repainted version is up for auction now, but I’m not putting in a bid, and I wouldn’t hang this one on my wall, either. The revision involved completely removing her skimpy red costume, and I’ve never considered redecorating my house with sultry naked vampire paintings.
The point is not the nudity, the question is, will blood be consumed or not?
And having grown up with Richard Corben doing artwork and stories for the Fantasy magazine Heavy Metal , Frazzetta seems pretty tame.
Hmm, Vampirella fought baddies.
And the main character in the later books by Annie Rice fed on baddies.
They are basically Blade without dietary hangups.
….and Japanese manga took up the crime-fighting, blood-drinking tropes, going where no American artist dared to thread.
Huh…
I’m pretty certain I have that book. Mixed in with a few other books of pictures of muscular, sword-wielding, heroes and half-naked woman riding mythical animals which I collected in those pre-internet days of my youth.
Remember Boris Vallejo?