Kelly Freas WIZARD Posters - Historical Repost
Mike Jittlov
THE INCREDIBLY COLORFUL AND PERSONALLY AUTOGRAPHED
FRANK KELLY FREAS POSTERS
OF
THE WIZARD OF SPEED AND TIME!
A Brief History of the Poster
FRANK KELLY FREAS is one of the Fantasy and Science Fiction
worlds' most beloved and acclaimed artists - and one who really
makes/lets all of his real-life subjects look their best. He
has painted beautiful portraits of the original STAR TREK cast,
as well as the Saints of South America, many covers for ARGOSY
and MAD Magazines. And he is a 10-time Hugo Award Winner.
(Always wondered what he did with 10 of those little cars...)
In mid-1984, Frank Kelly Freas was commissioned to paint a full
fantasy poster of my "Wizard of Speed and Time" personnum. He
took several Polaroids of me, and prepped for a portrait.
This painting wasn't my idea, and I was reluctant. The movie
was already enough to brand me an ego-maniac, so I felt uneasy
about my face all over a canvas. I drew a sketch from the new
WIZARD RUN's opening (which ia still unfilmed, that observatory
is a temp shot)...how about the full wizard, flying through new
realities, taking energy from his own world and giving "magic"
to the poster-viewer? Minimize my face, concentrate on the
fantasy elements, and I'd like to see our leading lady (Paige
Moore - Miss Virginia 1980) in the largest planet, etc etc.
Instead of reeling from the fool filmmaker's requests, Kelly
actually listened to me - and then really got into the spirit
of our feature film. He not only created a knock-out poster,
but even added a lot of subliminals throughout:
* Paige's dreamy face (and a kind of curled up nude behind her)
is up there in the planet - which is an odd taffy-pull thing
(with the letters "Polly", Kelly's first wife & model, woven
in the forms - and maybe more)
* Below it is a portrait of Einstein (which I sometimes see, or
more often not - maybe it's an IQ indicator)
* Down across the entire bottom, the nebulae create a vague but
readable "Here Comes Mike Jittlov" (awwww)
* Above that, is a cat-faced planet (Maybe for our 23-year-old
housecat...I didn't ask.) (But I _like_ cats)
* The entire star-spread behind the Wizard looks like a heart,
upside-down - matching the wiz-hood shape
* In the star-stream to the right, 5" above the title, is a
teeny-tiny Happy-Face (since I am credited/blamed by some for
creating it in the early 60's) (Actually arose from several
people, synchronically - and maybe from that type-glyphed :-)
* In the star-stream to the right (8" N, 3" W), there's a teeny
tiny Pac-Man, which I did NOT in any way invent or create, and
which is brashly depicted here without a copyright
* Above the Wizard, to the right, is a Cackling Spider Planet
(- a presageant to Meriday Beth's jumpy spider <*>^<*>?)
* At the fingertips of the Wizard's left hand (as a wink to the
author of "Subliminal Seduction"), the lightning bolts form
the letters SEX (or SFX, depending on your upbringing)
* And there's gotta be more sublims that even _I_ can't find!
(because Kelly just grins when I ask him...)
I also did the WIZ titles at bottom, designing and Xacto-cutting
letters from a sheet of yellow Pantone paper, after my filmmaking
production hours. Looks fairly professional. Kelly was delighted.
And he said the painting original was mine to keep, as his gift.
Shortly after my esteamed business partner (who also played the
evil, slimey, embezzling, sociopathic producer in our WIZARD film)
locked me out of our office (I'm only the corporation President),
I did demand the Freas original artwork - but e.b.p. said it was
gone, he had no idea where it was. The original oil painting, its
four-color separations, my title-treatment - all have vanished.
[Let me know if you see anyone with these, as I'd really like them
returned. The original is about 20x30 - smaller than the poster.]
Well, before you could say "Restraining Order", the e.b.p. then
vanished with all our office equipment, video machines, supplies
and records, without a forwarding address. The only thing left
behind was the small, unwieldy pile of these posters - the last of
the already small 4,000 print-run. Many of these survivors were
bent, torn, scored or otherwise damaged. But not all of them...
(See next posting for SHAMELESS AD for POSTER SALES!)
_________________________________________ ___._`.*.'_._ ________
Mike Jittlov - Wizard, etc . . + * .o o.* `.`. +.
Hollywood, CA 90026-2714 ' * . ' ' |\^/| `. * . *
jit...@gumby.cs.caltech.edu (: May All Your \V/ Good Dreams
<& alt.fan.mike-jittlov> and Fine Wishes /_\ Come True:)
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"Capitalize on the inevitable." -- Arthur C. Clarke