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.

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.

It your mommy's an orc, put your sword up in the air! 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.

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.

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:

Speaking of Zak McKracken, the Japanese version for FM Towns computers uses a different image - aside from the hero turning into a stock anime boy, his pose actually somewhat resembles the above poses, but the execution is very different. How do we know it is probably a rip-off, anyway? Well, one of he cover variants for the home computer game Joe Blade uses the same pose. Still no sight of their common ancestor, though.

More King of the Mountain goodness, but here the lady to the legs is derived from Leia in captivity of Jabba the Hutt. The guy we don't know yet.

The movie poster for Army of Darkness is another play on the King of the Mountain trope. Not only Duke Nukem's personality is inspired by Bruce Campbell's greatest movie role, he also likes to pose in the exact same way. Given the tone of the game, it seems a little odd that they didn't trace over the hot chick that clings to his leg, too.

This castle doesn't come from real life, though, but is ripped straight out of an illustration by Clyde Caldwell for the Ravenloft module in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Dracula included. Caldwell is a very prolific artist seen in countless Magic the Gathering and D&D publications, and also provided some of the covers for SSI's Goldbox series. This is the only cover in the classic NES trilogy where we haven't found a stand-in for Simon's pose... yet.

But that's not enough: The American cover for the next sequel in the series also seems to take hints from a Clyde Cadwell illustration. Compare the knight who deflects the dragon's fire with Trevor Belmont to the right. They look a bit different, but the stance is similar, and the set of stairs is replaced by one of the spinning cogwheels in the clock tower. The fact that it might have been the same artist who already traced from Caldwell for the Simon's Quest cover makes this more likely. Warriors fighting dragons in similar poses also appear on the flyer for Irem's arcade shoot-'em-up Youjyuden, and an ad for the NES version of Hydlide but that is also not close enough to really prove a connection.

One of Ocean's cover artists (Imagine was a label by them) for their home computer games apparently was a huge fan of The Punisher, cause there's a strange tradition of taking poses from the comic book covers.

This might be the oldest reference material to ever appear in this list. One would think the simulation-heavy action RPG by British game programming pioneer Mike Singleton used it intentionally for a specific effect rather than as a mere drawing help, though.

Admittedly, this looks quite a bit different than the original painting, but the structure of the pillars is just too similar to be coincidence. (The painting is stretched to make the familiarity more obvious, click for the real aspect ratio)

Another famous painting, La Mort de Marat! If it goes on like this, we uncultivated gamers might even get some art history education out of this. (This time the painting had to be cropped, the original is once again behind a click.)

Turrican is totally heavy metal, so Manowar should totally let this one slip through (and they did, even if it was unknowingly).

Another metal album cover: AWA Software's Bedlam on the ZX Spectrum is a rather shameless rip from Iron Maiden's Killers.

Well, actually this is about the European-developed home computer versions of Gun.Smoke, which started in their homeland of Spain as the clone Desperado. Only for the UK market Capcom picked the game up and released it officially with the Gun.Smoke title. The game's ending shot recreates one of the most iconic panels from Lucky Luke, which was even made immortal with a larger-than-life statue in the Belgian town Charleroi.

We've got surprisingly few manga and anime references so far, but the arcade fighter Asura Blade is here to help rectifying that. The skull displayed in the "vs" screen is almost the same as a drawing in Berserk. It was removed from the update/sequel Asura Buster.

This is a really weird love triangle. Blaze on the Streets of Rage cover was clearly traced from the film poster of Sister Street Fighter, but that's only the beginning of the mess: When the American version of Final Fight 2 came along, the cover showed many elements cobbled together from both the Streets of Rage 1 and 2 - or so it seems. While it reuses Blaze's pose for Maki, Carlos copies Sonny Chiba's punch - which is not represented on any of the SoR covers. Other elements, like the guy with the knife who falls on his back, and that weird green dude coming out of the sewer appear on two game covers, but not in the film poster. This can only mean that either the artist for all the game covers was one and the same person, lazily reusing his references, or there's a deeper conspiracy going on that we haven't even begun to grasp.

The saucy shot that reveals the central element of the poster through the legs of a barely-clad woman got copied in a lot of covers and ads for all kinds of games - from upper left to lower right there's SSI's sci-fi sports sim Galactic Gladiators, SEGA's arcade shooter Thunder Blade (which we'll meet again on page 4), Al Lowe's saucy adventure Leisure Suit Larry, the racer Downforce, the fighting game Evil Zone and the tank shooter BattleTanx.

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.