FRANK BRUNNER

Frank Brunner (born February 21, 1949) is an American comic book artist and illustrator best known for his work at Marvel Comics in the 1970s.

Brunner attended Manhattan's High School of Art and Design. He was in the same graduating class as Larry Hama and Ralph Reese.

Brunner broke into comics as a horror writer-artist for the black-and-white comics magazines Web of Horror, Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. His best-known color-comics work is his Marvel Comics collaboration with writer Steve Engelhart on the supernatural hero Doctor Strange in Marvel Premiere from 1972 to 1973, and in Doctor Strange: Master of the Mystic Arts, issues 1,2,4 and 5, in 1974. Other Marvel credits include the anthologies Chamber of Chills, Haunt of Horror, and Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction; the supernatural series The Tomb of Dracula; the swamp-monster series Man-Thing; and the science fiction series Silver Surfer.

Also for Marvel, Brunner adapted Robert E. Howard's sword-and-sorcery pulp fiction hero Conan the Barbarian in the 42-page story "The Scarlet Citadel", and drew many covers for the similar series Red Sonja and Savage Sword of Conan.

Brunner and novelist Michael Moorcock collaborated on a comics adaptation of Moorcock's sword-and-sorcery hero Elric in Heavy Metal magazine. It was reprinted in publisher Mike Friedrich's Star Reach Greatest Hits.

Brunner briefly returned to comics in the early-1980s as artist on the First Comics title Warp, based on the science-fiction play that ran briefly on Broadway in the 1970s. He then wrote and drew the graphic novel The Seven Samuroid (1984), a science-fiction takeoff of the movie classic Seven Samurai.

Brunner moved to Hollywood and began a career in movie and television animation, working on projects for Hanna-Barbera (Jonny Quest), Walt Disney Imagineering (Euro Tomorrowland movie), Warner Bros. (preproduction Batman design) and DreamWorks (Invasion USA). He was the head of character design for the Fox animated series X-Men.