Buying Frank Frazetta

The prices on the artist's work continues to rise

Last Update August 9, 2023

2023

Frank Frazetta cover to Dark Crusade by Karl Edward Wagner sells for $6 million, the high point (thus far) for a Frazetta painting. The painting is listed as Dark Kingdom when using Frazetta's own title for the image.

Story about the sale at Fine Books Magazine - June 27, 2023

 

"Frazetta's painting graced the covers of Karl Edward Wagner's 1976 novel Dark Crusade and Molly Hatchet's 1979 Flirtin' With Disaster and was one of the late artist's most treasured works. Additionally, the preliminary watercolor sketch that eventually grew into the iconic At the Earth's Core, which appeared on the 1974 cover of the Edgar Rice Burroughs paperback, realized $52,800."

Step by step Frazetta paintings are climbing in value and there's probably no limit to where they are headed, something forseen by many since Frazetta's death in 2010. Frazetta's images are so heavily embedded into the general pop culture, often through imitation, that he is simply unavoidable.

2019

Egyptian Queen goes for $5.4 million

May 16, 2019: Originally Egyptian Queen was done in 1969 for Eerie #23. This auction high price beats out the old record of $1,792,500.00 million for Death Dealer #6 painted in 1990 and sold at auction on May 10, 2018. Frazetta has said that Egyptian Queen painting was done quickly until he got to the face, and he spent three days trying to get it right, finally giving up because he said he'd "gone blind" to it. Later when the image was returned from Warren Publications (which Frazetta has said paid on average around $250 for his cover illos), Frazetta saw exactly what was the matter and he repainted the face "in under five minutes."

Heritage Auction page for the sale

Frazetta Museum page on the artwork

2018 - Nov 17

Hand-colored repro of Weird Science #29 by Frazetta goes for $8,400.00 (A previous sale at Heritage Auctions in 2013 sold a similar print for $3,107.00)

See the page at Heritage Auction

2013

Frazetta painting from Vampirella #5 goes for $286,800.00 at auction with Heritage, August 1, 2013. The female figure seems to be the same one from Frazetta's Queen Kong, 1976.

More lists of Comic Book Money

July 22, 2010

Conan The Destroyer sells for $1.5 million USD

More about Conan the Destroyer painting

Well, the land rush continues on the high-profile Frank Frazetta paintings with "Destroyer" going for $1.5 million to a private collector. "Conan the Conqueror" (also called "The Berserker") went for $1 million USD in November of 2009. "Conan the Destroyer" is probably the second best known Conan painting by Frazetta (number one being "Conan the Adventurer,"also called "The Barbarian".) Frazetta's ink drawing for EC Comics Weird Science Fantasy #29 sold for $380,000 recently.

How long until "Rogues in the House" (AKA simply "Conan") and "The Snow Giants" ("Conan of Cimmeria") go?

Pocono Record

 

"...Managers Robert Pistella and Stephen Ferzoco call the price the highest ever for a work by Frazetta.

 

...In recent years, his children have fought over an estate estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars."

2010 May

Frank Frazetta "Warrior with Ball and Chain" attributed 1973

16'x19" oil painting on canvas board

More about the cover to Flashing Swords by Frazetta

Sold for $150,000 USD in the 2010 May Illustration Art Auction from Heritage Auctions.

This image was originally used as the cover for the anthology paperback "Flashing Swords #1" from 1974 (erroneously attributed as 'Flashing Swords #2' in the Frazetta Legacy book put out by Underwood in 1999). (The hardcover versions of Flashing Swords #1 and #2, printed in 1973, featured other Frazetta paintings not used in the paperback editions, which bolsters the claim by Ellie Frazetta that the collectibility of the Frazetta cover art alone created sales for publishers, and was an intended effect when commissioning Frazetta cover art.)

Frazetta's color usage in this image for "Flashing Swords #1" (Paperback) is a throwback to Frazetta's efforts from the 1960s, versus the more controlled color of, for example, "Death Dealer" which appeared as the cover for Flashing Swords #2, also in 1974.

Interesting note about Frazetta's muscle distortion: the warrior in the artwork has a five row abdominal mass, but this placement is at odds to actual male anatomy.

June 9, 2010

Frazetta's cover to Weird Science Fantasy #29 sells for $380k

More about Weird Science Fantasy #29 by Frazetta

When alive, Frank Frazetta boasted that he had turned down offers of $250,000 for this artwork, and that it ran as a cover for EC Comics in 1955 only because it was rejected by its intended publisher, Famous Funnies. Frazetta took it to EC Comics, and was able to work out a special deal to keep the original artwork, perhaps the only time EC Comics publisher Bill Gaines made such a deal during the halcyon days when EC was but a mere comic book publisher.

Story about the sell of the piece at the Pocono Record

 

"The original artwork for a comic book cover drawn in 1955 by the late fantasy artist and Marshalls Creek resident Frank Frazetta just sold for a record-setting $380,000.

 

The pen-and-ink drawing was purchased by Heritage Auctions co-founder Jim Halperin.

...The cover is the first piece of Frazetta art to be sold since the artist's death May 10.

 

"Frazetta did a total of 42 comic book covers, many of which are no longer thought to exist as original art, though WSF No. 29 is by far his most famous." Halperin said.

 

Halperin was approached by agents for the Frazetta family to sell the art.

 

"I was thrilled to pay their asking price," he said, "which, although it set a new record by a wide margin, actually seemed quite fair for the ultimate EC cover."

UPDATE MAY 2011: The Frazetta record for highest price paid for a single piece of comic book art was beat by the sell of a Frank Miller splash page for $448K. Read about the Frank Miller artwork here.

2009

Frazetta "Berserker" sells for $1.0 million USD

1968 painting originally used as cover for "Conan the Conqueror"

More about Conan the Berzerker by Frazetta

Guitarist Kirk Hammett purchased the painting for $1,000,000 USD in 2009. Prior to Hammet's acquiring one of the seminal Conan images of the 20th century, the Frazetta original record auction sale price was $251,000 in 2008 for the cover to Escape on Venus,

More Frank Frazetta

Buying Frank Frazetta

Fantastic Paintings of Frazetta Hardcover – July 21, 2020

by J David Spurlock (Author), Frank Frazetta Jr. (Afterword)

Fantastic Paintings of Frazetta - AMAZON

Telling Stories: The Comic Art Of Frank Frazetta-Hardback - AMAZON

Frazetta: The Definitive Reference - Amazon

Frazetta Sketchbook (vol II) (Vanguard Frazetta Classics) - Amazon

Conan the Phenomenon - Dark Horse Conan historian Paul Sammon looks at all the stages of the character's development, with commentary and archival material from the most integral players in that history, in this must-have book for anyone who's followed the barbarian through any of his incarnations.

Frazetta - Painting with Fire by Eleanor Frazetta - documentary - AMAZON

Frank Frazetta - Fire and Ice (Two-Disc Limited Edition) - AMAZON

Harcover Collection: Legacy by Frank Frazetta - AMAZON