The Force is strong with Atascadero-based filmmaker and storyboard artist Lance LaSpina, whose 2003 documentary Frazetta: Painting with Fire was recently tapped to be screened on permanent rotation in Star Wars creator George Lucas’ brand-new LA-based Lucas Museum of Narrative Art that opened to the public last month. Frank Frazetta (1928-2010) is known as the godfather of modern fantasy art.
“Having something I made land in George Lucas’ own museum still feels a little surreal,” LaSpina marveled. “I mean, this obviously wasn’t my goal. I created this documentary, and I’m just thankful that he found it and appreciated it. I mean, he could have watched it and said, ‘I don’t really like it,’ and tossed it aside, but the fact that he actually enjoyed it enough to include in the museum? It’s the honor of a lifetime. This is my Academy Award. This is as close as I’ll get to that kind of moment.”
Visit the museum
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is located at One Lucas Plaza, Los Angeles, in Exposition Park. Visit lucasmuseum.org/plan-your-visit for tickets ($25 adults, $21 for 65 and older, 17 and under free; ticketed reservations are required).
LaSpina was born in Pennsylvania into an artistic family and fell in love with Frazetta’s work early on. In LaSpina’s professional life, he worked on films such as Baby Geniuses, End of Days, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Dr. Dolittle 2, T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous, and Scenic Route, not to mention videogames and other media.
“My mom was an artist. Her sister, my aunt, was an artist. My sister was an artist or is an artist, I should say. So, my mom was always fostering that in us, always providing paper and colored pencils, crayons—whatever we needed to do our artwork. And she was a really good teacher, too, because she would gently critique us.”
She’d also haul LaSpina to the mall when she went shopping and drop him off at either Waldenbooks or B. Dalton bookstores.
“I would go right to the art section, or I guess this was actually the science fiction fantasy area, because I don’t think [Frazetta’s work] was in the art section because they didn’t consider it art at that point,” LaSpina recalled. “I wouldn’t budge. I would just sit there. At the time, Frank had five books published by Ballantine, and they were all The Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta volume 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I would spend my time just going through his books and marveling at his illustrations. I didn’t—as a kid—have enough money to buy them, but my parents eventually got them for birthday or Christmas presents. I still have the full collection.”
LaSpina was in his early 20s when heavy metal frontman Glenn Danzig became friends with Frazetta, who illustrated Danzig’s adult-themed comic book series, most notably The Death Dealer.
“It reignited my love for Frank’s work because he hadn’t published anything in so long,” LaSpina explained. “It got me thinking, ‘Why has no one ever done a documentary? This guy is so great. He’s an influence on so many people.’ He was also a very mysterious figure, meaning that he didn’t do a lot of interviews, especially on camera. There was no video of him speaking. I didn’t know what he sounded like. So, it just really intrigued me that he had this mystery about him. I thought, ‘More people need to know the guy behind this fantastic artwork.’”
Frazetta was still alive at the time but wasn’t in great health after several strokes. LaSpina knew Frazetta wouldn’t do interviews, so he came up with a way to entice him. He attended the 1999 San Diego Comic-Con and started filming other illustrators in attendance about their reverence for Frazetta.
“We cut together a trailer from all that footage and sent it directly to the Frazettas, and didn’t hear back for several weeks,” LaSpina remembered. “One day, I got a phone call, and it was Frank Jr., Frank’s son, on the phone. And he acknowledged how much they enjoyed the tape. He said, ‘It was so good it made us all cry.’ That was an amazing thing to hear, a compliment, really. And then he passed the phone to Ellie, Frank’s wife, and she started speaking, telling me that a lot of people have tried to do this. They’ve received several videotapes before. No one’s gotten it right. They’ve never agreed to any film before. But they loved ours, and they were interested in talking further. And then she passed the phone to Frank, and Frank was thanking me, and I was like, ‘No, this is backwards. I want to thank you for all you’ve done for not only me, but for all the artists who have grown up admiring your work, and who’ve been influenced by you.’ That was, obviously, a great thrill for me.”
What followed was unprecedented access to Frank Frazetta. LaSpina and his crew arranged a three-week shoot in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. One of Frazetta’s daughters was in Florida at the time and had a nearby house LaSpina and his crew stayed in.
“It was very convenient for us. Every morning, we would wake up, and we usually spent the mornings filming with Frank, and then we’d give him the rest of the day off. He was still recovering from a stroke. Ellie refused to be interviewed, unfortunately. We have two small clips of her. One was during the Frazetta Art Museum opening. Another was a very small clip where she’s talking about not giving Frank a key to his own museum because he would go and take paintings off the wall and repaint them, and so she locked them up, which is pretty funny. His own museum!”
Though he probably wouldn’t take credit, LaSpina and his documentary are certainly in part responsible for Frazetta’s bolstered reputation as a fine artist and visual storyteller, something Lucas clearly recognizes about both Frazetta and LaSpina.
“I’m so thankful for what George Lucas is doing. The night that I went to the sneak peek, when George came up to speak to the question of whether Frazetta’s work was illustrative or fine art, he said it was ‘finer art’ because it’s telling a story and not just a portrait of someone sitting in a chair. Every illustration has something going on. You could create a narrative story from that. And that’s what excites George. That’s what excites a lot of people who are going to go [to the Lucas Museum]. I hope that people who pooh-poohed illustrative art in the past are going go see it and change their minds.” ∆
Contact Arts Editor Glen Starkey at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Oct 15-22, 2026.
