Frank Frazetta was an American painter and illustrator whose fantasy artwork — most famously the oil-painted covers for the 1960s Lancer Books reprints of Robert E. Howard’s Conan — set the visual standard for sword-and-sorcery for half a century. Earlier in his career he assisted Al Capp on Li’l Abner and contributed to EC Comics. Frazetta’s muscular figuration and atmospheric colour have made him one of the most collected and influential fantasy painters in American popular art.