‘Collector’s items’
I was saddened to read that artist Frank Frazetta passed away on May 10 at age 82. Frazetta was the guy who gave a face to Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, and his cover illustrations for horror comics like Creepy and Eerie in the late 1960s and early ’70s had a huge influence on me. I’ve heard that Frazetta was pooh-poohed by the artistic “establishment,” but if art is about stoking emotions and making people dream, then in my lowbrow estimation he was as good as any painter you can name. With his flint-faced, slab-muscled berserkers and buxom Hyborian hotties, Frazetta embodies the genre of heroic fantasy art and has many imitators – some with arguably better technical ability – but these are only anemic amateurs compared to the Brooklyn-born Caravaggio of Cimmerian carnage, our own Goya of Gothic ghastliness. Fare thee well, Frank.
The Railroad Memories auction ended last Fri., June 18. Owner Susan Knous said there were about 50 Internet bidders: “The participation was great and overall I had some record-breaking prices, so I felt it was a really good sale.” No-bid items went on sale for the price of the minimum bid; most have already sold, but there is still some nice stuff. Go to www.RailroadMemories.com, click on “AUCTION CATALOG 76 CLOSED,” then click on “NO BID ITEMS.” (By the way, I was able to win one of the Denver & Rio Grande stock certificates signed by Otto Mears!)
For Americana collectors, I highly recommend A Glimpse of Americana (www.AGlimpse.com). They have lots of great vintage photos as well as newspapers, ephemera, letters and other great stuff, in subcategories like “Native American,” “Wild West,” “Maritime,” “Circus & Sideshow,” “Wheeled Vehicles,” “Fairs & Expos,” “Police & Firefighting” and many more – and at really good prices, in my opinion. I have purchased a number of items from them over the past couple of years and have always been pleased.
Diner fans who read the post “A blast from the repast” (Sept. 21, 2009) will recall that author Richard Gutman, author of the 1979 classic “American Diners” and now curator and director of the Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., stirred folks’ nostalgia for diners and helped rescue this icon of American food culture just as it was on the verge of disappearing. Richard is the subject of a June 15 post on Smithsonian.com by Sarah Saffian.
Clay Moyle, author of “Sam Langford: Boxing’s Greatest Uncrowned Champion” (profiled in “Resurrecting Sam Langford” on May 14), reports growing interest in his book about an exceptional fighter who might have been a world heavyweight champion if he hadn’t been the wrong color. I predict a major publisher will pick up and reissue this self-published work. Purchase it from Amazon.com or get a copy signed by Clay by visiting www.PrizefightingBooks.com.
The new season of “History Detectives” (www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives) started Mon., June 21, on PBS. It’s an excellent show, and a real lesson in how far you can go in researching an item. There’s a new full-time co-host, Eduardo Pagan, a professor at Arizona State University and author of “Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot Suits, Race, and Riots in Wartime L.A.” (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), who specializes in the American Southwest. If you’re a new visitor to this blog, check out our interview with History Detective Elyse Luray (“What the experts collect” on Jan. 26, 2010). And keep an eye peeled for our forthcoming interview with History Detective Tukufu Zuberi here on AmeriCollector.com!
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wow! Why can’t I think of things like that?