View source for The Lost Episodes: about the cover art

<P>By [[Rip Rense]]

<p>[[Biography|Frank Zappa]]'s music available only on the black market?  And offered ''real cheap'', because it's so weird?  Sounds like a plot invented by Zappa himself, but it's the world [[Gabor Csupo]] was raised in.</p>
<P>Csupo is the founder of Klasky-Csupo Animation, the people who originally animated ''[[The Simpsons]]'', and now bring you ''[[Duckman]]''.   He is also the artist whose work adorns the cover of this CD.  As a kid in [[Communism|communist]] [[Hungary]], Csupo (pronounced CHOO-po) could buy Zappa's music in Budapest for next-to-nothing because, as his black market connection told him, "it's hard to whistle to."</P>
<p>Zappa's affection for ''The Simpsons'' led to a friendship with Csupo, which led FZ to ask the animator to draw the cover for ''The Lost Episodes''.</P>
<P>"I just got very excited that I can do a Frank Zappa cover!" said Csupo.  "I asked Frank if he had any specific idea for it, and he said 'absolutely not - do what you like.'  So I gave him three different designs done on my Macintosh computer.  The first one was the big face [Zappa's]- with the big moustache staring into the camera.   The next one was kind of experimental half-computer graphic - kind of a green half-negative of Frank playing guitar.  And the third one was a very cartoony, claustrophobic drawing where he is sort of lost in his basement where piled up all his tapes.  Kind of tearing his hair out."</p>
<P>Csupo presented all three to Zappa one afternoon in 1993, when the composer was working quietly at his [[Synclavier]], [[Tweezers|tweezing]] passages of ''[[Civilization Phaze III]]''. FZ swiveled his chair sideways, smiled at the three pieces of art through rather professorial black-rimmed glasses, and instantly pointed at the very cartoony, claustrophobic, lost-in-the-basement version.</p>
<P>"That's the one," he said.</p>

==See Also==
*[[The Lost Episodes]]

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[[Category:Articles about Zappa|Lost Episodes:about the cover]]