of their two-year collaboration.

A Producers Sales Organization Presentation of a Ralph Bakshi Film, Fire and Ice is a 20th Century-Fox release directed by Ralph Bakshi and produced by Bakshi and Frank Frazetta. The characters were created by Bakshi and Frazetta

from a screenplay by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway. John W. Hyde and Richard R. St. Johns are executive producers and Lynne Betner is associate producer.

Like the polar-opposite fates alluded to in Frost's poem, the savage, primevil world of Fire and Ice teeters on the edge of its own Armageddon. "Fire" comprises the volcanic lands of good King Jarol, where besieged humankind has been forced to make its last stand; "Ice" represents the relentlessly advancing glaciers controlled by an evil sorcerer, the Ice Lord Nekron. Caught between these implacable forces is Princess Teegra, Jarol's daughter, who has been taken prisoner to become Nekron's bride, and Lam, the sole survivor of a human village wiped out by Nekron's subhuman hordes. Lam seeks both to rescue Teegra and to take his revenge on Nekron. At times he is aided in this quest by a legendary warrior, the fearsome. and mysterious Darkwolf.

Fire and Ice has its origins in the creative association of Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta, which began in 1980. Bakshi, who first stood the world of animation filrnniaking on its collective ear in the early Seventies with "Fritz the Cat," and went on to create other modern milestones of the field with films like "Wizards," "Heapy Traffic," "Lord of the Rings" and "American Pop," felt there was one more animation project he wanted to try.

It would be a sword and sorcery tale -- in the style of classic comic-book art brought to life -- utilizing the rotoscope animation process he had continued to developed through his last two films.