By far the oldest example in this article, Treasure Dungeon 2 was a type-in program printed in the TRS-80 magazine SoftSide in September 1979. What is seen to the right was the flavor art that came to accompany the BASIC listing. It may well have been the very first video game "cover" inspired by Frank Frazetta art, but it sure as hell wasn't the last...

If you played the very first Might and Magic and feel the urge to protest that you've never seen this image, you can calm down again. It only appears in the Japanese home computer versions by Starcraft, whose look differs quite a bit from the original game. Frank Frazetta apparently was a huge influence on Japanese fantasy illustrators in general, as the following entries will demonstrate.

Even Ys got a portion of Frank Frazetta inspiration, in the TurboGrafx-16 version of the third game. The original painting is called "Seven Romans." Well, he lost the other six, but he gained some rad wings on his helmet. An ugly re-westernized variant "decorates" even the cover of the US version.

This one on the other hand is a bit surprising, as the painting by the late great Frank Frazetta salvaged for the flyer of Rastan Saga II is not even one of his Conan works - it's simply titled The Norseman. But the real shocker is that Rastan wasn't the only game to steal it - Taito also reused it for Cadash (in a slightly modified stance), U.S. Gold took it for the cover of the Amiga port for Black Tiger, it appears on the home computer versions of Dragon Slayer and even the original Castlevania cover is clearly derived from it.

Speaking of Castlevania, the castle displayed in the background of most covers in the classic series are taken from real life references (and also some from Lupin III).

Hooray, random nudity! At least Frank Frazetta was for equal opportunities, cause in his paintings everyone is naked. The trapper on the Colorado cover also seems to have some serious case of Schwarzenegger face.

When the obscure Macintosh RPG Quarterstaff got ported to Japanese 16-bit computers, publisher Starcraft kept the basic motif of the cover, but for some reason had it redrawn, taking the archer from the same Frazetta painting as Colorado. The warrior seems to be a loose interpretation of a painting by Boris Vallejo, see below.

The advertisement for the Trashy European home computer brawler Legend of the Amazon Women copies at the very least two scantily-clad female warriors by Frazetta, but there are three more on there that still need to be identified. Also, in the background fight two dinosaurs from the film One Million Years B.C., who are no illustrations but still grouped here to keep things together in one place.

We have already seen Dragon Slayer taking inspiration from Frank Frazetta's paintings. Now Legend of Heroes, another part of the metaseries, copies no less than three paintings by the master for its PC Engine CD version intro. The archer is the same as in Colorado above, while the orc that's about to slay him is from a painting called The Brain, which we will see again below. His four-armed colleague is none other than Conan the Destroyer.

There are a few more obscure Japanese PC titles that borrow from Frazetta, and one of them is Duel, a little known fantasy strategy game by the little known company Kure Software Koubou. Its intro is full of Frazetta poses, or at least that's to assume, as only two of the five images could be identified so far.

But it already starts on the title screen, which is based on a black and white ink drawing by Frazetta. Of course it's most obvious with the shirtless guy in the middle, but actually all characters have the exact same posture. The same image can also be seen on the cover of Lords of Karma, an ancient American computer game.

From the same developer as Duel comes First Queen, the start of a long running series on PC-98 and X68000. Once again the intro is very much Frazetta inspired. Especially interesting is the second image, which transforms the riding warrior into a centaur.

Another game by Koubou, some more cutscenes based off Frazetta illustrations. This time the art is definitely more independent, though, using the poses for very different looking characters. We also get to see The Norseman again. The dying guy at the far left side of the lower image is the same one as the angel in the intro to Duel, but the source is still unknown.

The legendary classic Gauntlet only rips off one of the three aforementioned Frank Frazetta paintings, but it does so twice on the same screen.

If your mommy's an orc, put your sword up in the air, yo! A raised right knee and a scantly-clad chick at your side is mandatory. (If you're Japanese, your girl may take over for the knee) Bonus points if you got a giant fricking animal, but a giant head lurking above a castle or some fighting samurais will do, too. It's OK if you make the sword straight if you really suck at drawing.

One Frank Frazetta illustration, three European home computer games / conversions that copy it, six images. 'nuff said.

Weaponlord is another big love letter to the Conan franchise, wherefore the artist was probably looking at a lot of art by one of the premier illustrators of the barbarian king, Frank Frazetta. The cover art thus follows a common motive in the master's work, depicting a dominating fighter raising the weapon to slay his victim beneath. It's changed up quite a bit, especially as Korr is given a position that depicts him somewhat counter-attacking (in the concept art, his sword was still pointing downwards), but the slayer's horns and the positioning of the most prominent monster in the second painting still hint at a direct connection.

The Magnificent by Boris Vallejo even makes Frazetta's Norseman look like a minor fad in game illustration plagiarizing. (Kult is not that clear, might have been mixed with The Norseman, or just coincidentally similar.) Here the fearless warrior has to share the spotligth with the creature he is fighting, though, which has also made a lot of solo appearances. Most are pretty obvious, but Bionic Commando might be a bit far-fetched, and clicking on the image for a larger version might be necessary to recognize the similarity.

The Bard's Tale Construction Set beats them all, though - it not only rips off both combatants from The Magnificent, but a whole range of other Vallejo illustrations, including Last Stand (flying creature on the lower left of the sphere) and Eternal Champion (guy on the upper right).

Speaking of Eternal Champion, that one was followerd by its fair share of copycats as well, with a bonus special outside of video games: The pose was also used for an Italian poster of the 1982 film The Sword and the Sorcerer.

The above image is actually an example of the King of the Mountain, one of the most frequent staples of fantasy illustration: A muscular hero, standing on elevated ground with one foot put forward, triumphantly holding up his weapon; to his legs crouches a female beauty. Artists like Frank Frazetta established it as a trademark pose for Conan, and the master has drawn countless variations of this. It also appeard on Renato Casaro's original poster art for the Conan the Barbarian movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Hell, it's even in Star Wars. Boris Vallejo was no stranger to this trope, either. During the 1980s, however, he started to spoof the hell out of what had now become a cliché. One of the results was his poster for the comedy film National Lampoon's Vacation. Hilariously, the title screen for Ocean's computer versions of Smash T.V. was ripped from this example. Interestingly, Zak McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders also spoofs the scene, with Zak holding up even more ridiculous items.

Even funnier is the box art for Stormlord, which is clearly derivated from the poster of the film's sequel, European Vacation, with lightning striking the fist and all. The version on the title screen is a bit more varied.

Shard of Inovar only takes the woman clinging to the hero's feet from the Vacation poster, but the replacement muscled man is also from a different Vallejo painting with a similar theme.

Another parody changed into "serious" fantasy art, it appears Vallejo originally drew this one for the Playboy.

The Bride is one of Vallejo's most favourite illustrations, appearing on covers of fantasy literature and art books. So it's incredible they thought they could get away with blatantly stealing it for the cover of a game - and apparently did get away with it.

What?! Even Prince of Persia ripped off one of the masters of fantasy illustration? No worries, it's just the Genesis version.

Scott Adams' adventures came in many different versions and many different boxes. Some releases of the graphic adventure upgrade of his second work steals another illustration by Vallejo.

Taito's Dino Rex almost seems to merge two of Vallejo's amazons into one - the pose is clearly derived from the left one, while the "clothes" are more similar to the right one.

Now this is a very curious case. It is a well-known fact that Sega contracted Boris Vallejo to paint several of their Genesis games' covers, including Ecco the Dolphin, Phantasy Star IV and Golden Axe II. Vallejo was hired again to draw an illustration for the third Golden Axe, but Sega apparently never used it, as in the US the game was only available as a download through the Sega Channel. Yet the Japanese cover for Golden Axe III clearly shows that the illustration Vallejo did in 1993 is another variant of the same motive. When contacted, the maestro confirmed that he indeed painted it for Sega, and that his version was the original. This means that Sega of Japan had access to an incredible painting by one of the world's most famous fantasy illustrators, and decided not to use it in favor of a second-rate imitation! (And they also ripped of a Schwarzenegger pose as Conan while they were at it, as seen on the first page.)

To be fair, this might not necessarily have been a potential litigation case. For all we know, Sega might have reserved itself the rights to produce derivative works of their contracted artist's contributions. Maybe they didn't even have the rights to use the originals in Japan. At any rate, this isn't the only time Sega did that to a Vallejo cover: Ecco the Dolphin, which made it to Japan about a year after the European release, also shows that kind of cartoonish variant of the same motive: