Frank Frazetta was a well-known fantasy artist who helped to create a distinct look and feel to the genre, especially its pulp and comic book figures. Known primarily for his renderings of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian character, much of Frazetta’s work presents images of hyper-masculinized and/or hyper-feminized figures. The word that I feel best describes his work is gritty, and this comes through I think particularly in his use of colors. He blends dark hues to produce dirty browns, greens, and reds, which give an impression of earth mixed with dried blood. Frazetta also employs shadows to emphasize his male figures’ muscles or female figures’ curves.
This cover of the first issue of the comic Vampirella demonstrates many of these traits. The image of the rising (or setting?) moon fills the background, and it appears extremely bright in comparison to the brownish-red sky that surrounds it. However, it is not a pure white, but a blending of cream, grey, blue, green, and redish hues; it seems reminiscent of a harvest moon. Vampirella herself stands confidently in front of this looming moon, the faintest shadow of what seems to be bat wings reflected on the moon directly behind her, a hint of her shape-shifting ability. She cocks out her right hip while her left foot rests on a human skull, which she could most likely easily crush. Like all of Frazetta’s female figures, Vampirella appears to be a strong, sexy woman. She is not thin but instead curved, perhaps what some would call voluptuous. The bright red, scanty cloth that appears strategically placed on her body accentuates her curves, as does the use of shadowing. Using shadow, Frazetta implies that Vampirella has hips and a bit of a belly. His choice to emphasize features like these seem especially interesting given that at the time of this publication (the late 1960s, early 1970s) was the beginning of the rise of the rail-thin supermodel. Vampirella is no Twiggy, however, but instead a kind of femme fatale, a true vamp.
The interplay between the text and the image is also striking as it directs the viewer precisely how to understand the image. The very top of the page, in yellow text, signals to the viewer that the contents of the comic will “bewitch and bedevil.” Vampirella’s body gestures also suggest this: her left hand placed suggestively on her left hip, while her right hand, specifically her right index finger, coyly placed by her mouth. The words “bewitch” and “bedevil” further reinforce her position as a creature, a type of other, something to be feared but also to be fascinated by. The black text placed above her head on the moon warns the viewer to “look out!” because “she’s waiting inside this first collector’s edition…for you!!” For me, it is this text that diminishes the effect of the image. By calling attention to the commodity nature of the comic, its status as a collector’s item, Vampirella becomes more like a model, a mannequin, a tool used to sell goods. Other textual elements now stand out: the large #1 at the top left of the page; the 50¢ mark on the right side of the page.
It might be easy to dismiss Frazetta and his work as being sexist. I would like to argue that instead, he was being very true to a genre in which female characters can be just as strong and commanding as their male counterparts. For me, what ruins this impression with this image is the surrounding text (obviously not incorporated by Frazetta), which focuses on the nature of the comic as a thing to be bought and collected.
Good post. While it's hard to deny that there's a degree of "objectification" in much of Frazetta's work (though perhaps of men as well as women), at least the more classical body-types he renders are far from the destructive, super-thin images of women in modern culture.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I agree. Frazetta's bodies (men and women) are lush and full of life. The super thin "twiggy" type model you contrasted Vampirella to is the almost the opposite of that.
ReplyDeleteHi Trey. Thanks for your thoughts -- I agree: the people in his work, idealized as they are, promote a much better body image than much of the advertisement artwork we see today. Something to be applauded.
ReplyDelete