Frazetta was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City. At the age of eight, with the insistence of his school teachers,[citation needed] Frazetta's parents enrolled him in the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts.[citation needed] He attended the academy for eight years under the tutelage of Michael Falanga, an Italian fine artist. Falanga was struck by Frazetta's significant talent.[citation needed] Frazetta's abilities flourished under Falanga, who dreamed of sending Frazetta to Europe, at his own expense, to further his studies,[citation needed] but Falanga died suddenly in 1944[citation needed]. As the school closed about a year later, Frazetta was forced to find work to earn a living.
At 16, Frazetta started drawing for comic books in various genres: westerns, fantasy, mysteries, histories, and other contemporary themes. Some of his earliest work was in funny animal comics, which he signed as "Fritz." During this period he turned down job offers from giants such as Walt Disney. In the early 1950s, he worked for EC Comics, National Comics, (including the superhero feature "Shining Knight"), Avon, and several other comic book companies. Much of his work in comic books was done in collaboration with friend Al Williamson and mentor[citation needed] Roy Krenkel.
Through the work on the Buck Rogers covers for Famous Funnies, Frazetta started working with Al Capp on his Li'l Abner comic strip. Frazetta was also producing his own strip, Johnny Comet at this time, as well as assisting Dan Barry on the Flash Gordon daily strip. In 1961, after nine years with Capp, Frazetta returned to regular comics. Having emulated Capp's style for so long, Frazetta's own work during this period looked a bit awkward as his own style struggled to reemerge.
Work in comics was hard to find, however. Comics had changed during his period with Capp, and his style was deemed antiquated. Eventually he joined Harvey Kurtzman, doing the parody strip Little Annie Fanny in Playboy magazine.
Frazetta attributes much of the violence and brutality of his later paintings to his actual experiences as a young man defending himself from the street gangs of Brooklyn. It was also during this time that he turned down an offer from a talent scout to play for the New York Giants.
Rodney Matthews (born July 6, 1945 in Paulton, North Somerset, England) is a fantasy artist and illustrator.
In 1978, he published "Yendor - The Journey of a Junior Adventurer", a hard-back picture book featuring his distinctive paintings of "The Wild Country", a fantasy world seen through the eyes of young Yendor, named after his son (Yendor is, of course, Rodney backwards). These paintings were accompanied by irreverent and light-hearted text written by Graham Smith, forming an episodic story about Yendor's journey. Despite not featuring any coherent plot structure, this whimsical book achieved cult status amongst fanatics of fantastic art due to Matthew's striking and surreal paintings.
Rodney has worked with a number of bands on album covers, the most notable of which is Birmingham melodic rock band Magnum for whom he designed the art-work for Chase The Dragon, The Eleventh Hour, On A Storyteller's Night and Sleepwalking as well as various compilations and reissues. He also designed album covers for Thin Lizzy, Tygers Of Pan Tang (Crazy Nights), Praying Mantis (Time Tells No Lies), Nazareth (No Mean City) and Scorpions (Lonesome Crow). More recently he worked on Magnum's latest album, Princess Alice And The Broken Arrow, which was released in March 2007; this is the first Magnum studio album since 1992 to feature his art-work. He has also worked with the rock group Asia. His most recent work to date is on The Immortal, a solo album by Magnum lead singer Bob Catley, released in September 2008.
Alongside his album cover work, he has illustrated a number of books and magazines, primarily fantasy and science fiction. He worked on the covers for the Witch World novels by Andre Norton and many of the novels by Michael Moorcock who introduces a section in "In Search of Forever".
He also designed the logo for the video game studio Traveller's Tales.
Paper Tiger Books have published several art books of Matthews' work, including "In Search of Forever" (1985), "Last Ship Home" (1989) and "Countdown to Millennium" (1997).
Likes:
Surfing, Pizza (meat lover), seafood and oreos
Dislikes:
Unprofessional managers and onions
From PR "sip asi es" from the tropical Island in the Caribbean.
Has worked in various fields of the entertainment industry such as: theatre, video game box art (PS2), storyboard for advertisement, comics, magazine, card game, toy box art and more.
In his free time he surfs to achieve his purpose of finding a beautiful and sexy mermaid.
