American illustrator Frank Frazetta died yesterday of a stroke at the age of 82. He was a master of sci-fi and fantasy imagery, imbuing his pieces with a sensuality and movement that became a trademark as he depicted scenes from an imaginary prehistory inhabited by monsters, demons, sword-wielding warriors, and zaftig princesses. Born in Brooklyn, New York, and educated in art at the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts, over several decades Frazetta’s paintings adorned scores of books, magazines, album covers and movie posters. Frazetta’s work is easy to locate online, so we decided to post a slightly more wide-ranging selection than you would normally find, in an effort to chart the progression of his career and to illustrate his great range. Still more art is viewable here.

Thanks to court papers filed this week in Brooklyn, New York, we finally know what happened to John Favara. Mr. Favara was the unlucky soul who accidentally killed John Gotti, Sr.’s twelve-year old son Frankie in an auto accident back in March 1980. Frankie rode in front of Favara’s car on a borrowed motorbike at the exact moment when Favara was briefly blinded by the setting sun. Police quickly cleared Favara of any wrongdoing, but John Gotti, Sr., aka The Dapper Don, wasn’t having it.

Favara knew he was in trouble, and went to the Gotti home to apologize, but was chased away by a baseball bat-brandishing Victoria Gotti. John Gotti suggested that Favara leave town, but he had a wife, two kids and a job in New Hyde Park, which made moving impractical. Parties unknown left Frankie Gotti’s funeral card in Favara’s mailbox, and yet more unknowns spraypainted the word “murderer” on his car, but still he didn’t hightail it. Maybe he thought it would all blow over. It didn’t. Favara finally disappeared that July. Witnesses saw a man assaulting him with a board outside his workplace that day, and several others heard the squealing of tires, but Favara’s body was never found.

This week’s court papers, containing testimony by Charles Carneglia, aka Charlie Canig, reveal that he and several other Gotti associates beat Favara, forced him into a van, and shot him in the legs. Favara was then driven to a secret Brooklyn location where he was killed and stuffed into a 55-gallon drum of acid, which dissolved his body. The moral of the story is twofold: first, when a Gotti “suggests” you leave town, think “Uruguay”; and second, now that we know from an insider how the Mafia operates, I guess we can stop hoping Jimmy Hoffa’s body turns up.

In Brooklyn, New York, authorities have found actor John Costelloe dead from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Costelloe, who played the character Johnny Cakes on television’s Sopranos was found yesterday in his basement bedroom, but died days earlier. He had been appearing off-Broadway in playwright Jim Neu’s Gang of Seven, and was due on the big screen in Doubt opposite Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Neu said he had noticed a change in Costelloe’s mood of late, and had queried the actor what was bothering him, but without success. “He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would reach out,” Neu said. “There couldn’t have been a more supportive and friendly group. If he wanted to reach out to people, we were right in front of him. I wish he did.”