Frank the Robot

Frank is a robot depicted on the album cover of News of the World. It is shown holding the dead bodies of the four Queen members: Brian May, Freddie Mercury, John Deacon and Roger Taylor (the latter two falling from his hand).

History
The album cover was inspired by the cover of an Astounding Science Fiction issue by sci-fi artist Frank Kelly Freas. It showed a large robot holding the body of a dead man, illustrating Tom Godwin's story of The Gulf Between. Roger Taylor owned a copy of this issue, which sparked Queen to contact Freas, asking if he could do a similar cover for their studio album News of the World. He agreed, replacing the man on the cover with the four band members lying dead in the robot's hand. The inner cover of the album depicted the robot grabbing at fleeing audience members in an auditorium (possibly where the band was playing). Later, the robot was named "Frank".

Pop Culture

 * In "Killer Queen", an episode of Family Guy, Stewie Griffin is terrified of Frank. This was based on the show's creator, Seth MacFarlane' fear of the cover as a child.
 * On a variant cover of X-Men: Gold #11, artist Mike del Mundo pays homage to the album cover by illustrating a Sentinel holding the bodies of Old Man Logan, Kitty Pryde and Colossus, with "This is their world" written instead of "News of the World".
 * A Funko Pop figure of Frank was released as part of Funko's line of Queen figures. It comes in a display case replicating the album's cover.