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Roy G. (for Gerald) Krenkel was a talented contradiction. Born in 1918 (around the time of Virgil Partch, Bernard
Krigstein and Ronald
Searle), he studied for a year with George Bridgman at the
Art Students League circa 1938, but other than that, his misspent
youth consisted of "drawing a lot, reading and collecting
art books, going to art museums, and associating with a few other
young art students," according to Sanford Zane Meschkow in
his preface to the excellent 1974 Cities and Scenes From the
Ancient World. Sketching and "doodling" were his
raison d'être.
World War II interrupted this idyllic existence. The less said
about that, the better. Regimentation was never a part of his makeup.
After the war, he studied with Burne Hogarth at the Cartoonists' and Illustrators' School. There he met Al Williamson, who was to become a lifelong friend and collaborator. For a while in the late 1940's and early 1950's, Roy worked with other Hogarth alumni doing comic book stories. His backgrounds were submerged beneath the stylistic inks of Wally Wood or lost behind the slap-dash efforts of Harry Harrison and Ernie Bache. It was only with Williamson that he found a sympatico talent to resonate with his muse. Together they would create beautiful stories for companies like ACG, Atlas, Eastern, the legendary EC, Harvey and Warren. He did the marvelous background city in the panels at right from the Al Williamson story, "The Unknown Ones", in Atlas' Astonishing Tales #57 in 1957.
But
back to the early Fifties. Roy was making a stab at making a living.
He actually drew at least one comic story all by his lonesome.
At right is the splash panel for "I Was a P.O.W." from
Youthful's Attack #4 (November 1952). [click the image
for an enlargement.]
Some of his most intricate work was done at this time. The oft-reprinted splash page for EC's "Food for Thought" that he did with Williamson is a classic. Some lesser-known samples of his earliest solo work are in the pulp magazines of the early 50's.
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Marvel Science Fiction May 1952 |
Space Science Fiction - Sept. 1953 |
Fantasy Fiction November 1953 |
| Click the above images for enlargements | ||
The
earliest I've uncovered from this period is from Marvel Science
Fiction (May 1952) and the latest is the sultry tribute to
Norman Lindsay
at the top of the page from Science Fiction Adventures
(May 1954). There are also Lindsay-inspired drawings to be found
in various issues of American Aphrodite, a mid-Fifties hardback
"Quarterly for the Fancy-Free." The Cretan beauty
at right is from volume 5, number 20. The rest of the Fifties,
though, is quite spotty. Roy preferred to "doodle" and
the results could fill a dozen books. The two sketches at the
top of this page are just two of a dozen or so that Bud Plant,
Al Davoren and I printed in Promethean Enterprises, a magazine we published circa 1970—and dozens of other fanzines of the 60's and 70's were also beneficiaries
of his largess.
Well,
let's face it, most of Roy's "career" consists of occasional
bursts of commercial output mixed with prolonged submersion into
personal creativity. He told Bhob Stewart that he "did the
minimal amount of commercial work that would give him just enough
to live on so he could spend his time drawing his own ideas --
with no one to please but himself." Non-paying gigs like
his uncounted contributions to the Sword and Sorcery fanzine,
Amra, and the Burroughs fanzine, ERB-dom, were much more
interesting to Roy than getting paid to illustrate some stories
in Analog. He did five or six of the latter and hundreds
of the former in the early Sixties. Roy's focus was always the
past, not the future.
Roy's knowledge of the past, both artistic and historic, was brought into play when Ace Books hired him to produce covers for their early 60's revival of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was this canon of three dozen books that would start a revival of fantasy fiction in that decade. The earliest to see print was At The Earth's Core for which he produced the lush jungle and figures at left. Each book had the extra bonus of a small RGK frontispiece in pen & ink. Halfway through the project, he enlisted Frank Frazetta's help. The thought of the self-effacing Krenkel trying to convince the self-assured Frazetta that Frank would actually be a success at painting goes contrary to everything we know about the two men. Still, after a couple of collaborative efforts, Roy sent Frank out on his own and the rest is history.
And speaking of history, as an inveterate collector, bookstore haunt, and student of art, Roy was the resident mentor in the history of illustration for many a young artist over the years. It was through Roy that Al Williamson was first exposed to the work of Fortunio Matania, Daniel Vierge and Joseph Clement Coll. Roy himself credits Franklin Booth, J. Allen St. John, William Walcot and Norman Lindsay as personal influences. Each new discovery or old favorite was shared with an ever-expanding circle of the cognoscenti. In Qua Brot #1 (1985), Roy is quoted by Stewart:
"I'd guess—discounting prints and clippings--I've got around 35 to 40 thousand magazines, paperbacks, books, folios, journals, fanzines, comics, etc., etc.—scattered through cabinets, shelves, wardrobes, boxes and floor—strewn in some 6 rooms--plus a cellar. At an given time I can, (usually), locate 97% of this muck—but 3% of 35/40 thou. leaves a lot of loose ends!"
That sounds a lot like my house. Much of what set me off on my life-long quest for knowledge in this arena was received second hand from Roy. His was the torch that led us all. The establishing of Bud Plant Illustrated Books and this website are the direct results of the knowledge he so freely and gleefully shared.
In
1962, about the same time that Ace was putting out the Burroughs
paperbacks, Canaveral Press started an illustrated hardback series.
Roy was chosen for four titles: The Cave Girl, Land
of Terror, Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins, and Tales
of Three Planets. One of the ten illustrations from this last
title is at right. No doubt it was these and his Analog
illustrations that won him the Hugo Award for best artist in 1963.
Also in those heady days of the mid-sixties, Krenkel was instrumental in the design of and was a contributor to the early issues of Jim Warren's Creepy and Eerie magazines (1964 and 1965). Some of those ground-breaking covers by Frazetta had their genesis in Krenkel sketches.
It
was in the 70's that Roy's artistic star shone the brightest.
First was Donald M. Grant's marvelous edition of The Sowers
of the Thunder with a color dj (see left) and frontispiece
and almost 100 b&w drawings in text. This was followed by
Owlswick Press' Cities and Scenes from the Ancient World
in 1974 (that's the cover image above). Then a stunning portfolio
of paintings titled The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
in 1975. In 1976, it was Richard Lupoff's Barsoom - Edgar Rice
Burroughs and The Martian Vision. There was a wonderful section
in Ophemera, Bhob Stewart's 1977 fanzine devoted to Roy,
and the decade was neatly capped in 1979 by the companion volume
to Sowers, The Road of Azrael, also by Robert E.
Howard, from Donald M. Grant.
Krenkel died in 1983, and six years later Eclipse books released Swordsmen and Saurians, a wonderful coffee table book devoted to the two subjects Roy loved most to draw. There was even a limited edition which featured, in lieu of a signature, an original drawing in every copy. The photograph below is from that book and was courtesy of Frank Frazetta.
To learn more about this artist, see:| Al Williamson: His Work | Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., 1971 Promethean Enterprises |
| Cities & Scenes From the Ancient World | Roy Krenkel, 1974 Owlswick Press |
| Roy G. Krenkel Portfolio #1 | Joe Manzella, 1983 Fantastic Visions |
| Qua Brot #1 | Bhob Stewart, 1985 Kyle Hailey |
| Swordsmen and Saurians | Roy Krenkel, 1989 Eclipse |
| The Vadeboncoeur Collection of Knowledge | Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. 2000 |
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or visit these fine tributes to Roy on the web: Michael J. Ryan's Palaeoblog Bill Hillman's ERBzine site |
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Illustrations are copyright by their respective owners. This page written, designed & © 2000 by Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. Updated 2011. |
