Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer

Image Comics

Plot: Nat Jones & Jay Fotos

Story: Joshua Ortega

Pens and Inks: Nat Jones

BEST. PAINTING. EVER.

Every sword and sorcery nerd’s dork dreams have been answered. How do I know? Because I AM a sword and sorcery nerd, and MY dork dreams have indeed been answered. And no, that doesn’t mean there’s a Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stage musical…it means that Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer has become a comic book! It’s as if the gods wrapped an Italian sausage in a fried mozzarella stick and told me I’d live forever if I ate it. But how does said sausage taste? Read on…

A word about Frank Frazetta: if you’ve ever seen a poster or paperback cover with a burly, shirtless man simultaneously fighting a demon and consoling a woman plastered to this thigh, you’ve seen Frazetta’s style. He’s better than countless imitators have lead us to believe. Frazetta was an excellent painter and draftsman who found success in painting book covers for Ace Science Fiction, and other pulp publishers of the 60s, 70s and 80s. The image of Conan the barbarian with long hair and an impossibly sculpted physique is Frazetta’s brainchild. With his famous depiction of Conan the barbarian, Frazetta helped the first paperback editions of Robert E. Howard’s stories sell millions of copies.  

Death Dealer, one of Frazetta’s most famous paintings, has a storied history. It made a sensation when he first painted it. Sly Stallone liked it so much, he tried to buy it. George Lucas admitted that his image of Darth Vader derives, in part, from Death Dealer. A number of other Hollywood types and celebrities all voiced their admiration for Frazetta’s stunning painting of the axe-wielding nightmare on horseback.

Given Death Dealer’s illustrious history, it’s no surprise Image Comics is capitalizing off off this sword-and-sorcery, especially given the phenomenal success of Dark Horse Comics’ various Conan titles. Burly men brandishing pointy objects are hotter than oversized sunglasses on slutty hotel heiresses. But how does Image Comics’ latest effort fare?

Thus far, the story is garden-variety. A mystical brotherhood, a noblewoman who loves a peasant, a horde of zombies warriors…it’s Army of Darkness sans Bruce Campbell. Despite the run-of-the-mill plot, though, the dialogue is engaging, and Joshua Ortega still manages to make the reader interested in the characters—though he shares credit for that with penciler Nat Jones, whose Guy Davis-esque attention to the messy details of rotting corpses and enchanted trees gives the book a suitably creepy look. Too bad there are more humans than zombies in this issue, however.

Worth the money? Sit this issue out. Despite its good features, Death Dealer doesn’t make an appearance until the last page. For four bucks, the reader should demand more than that.