Ramona Fradon

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Ramona Fradon

Fradon at the New York Comic Con in Manhattan, October 9, 2010.
Born (1926-10-02) October 2, 1926
Nationality American
Area(s) Artist
Notable works
 Aquaman
Metamorpho
Super Friends
Brenda Starr
Awards Women Cartoonists Hall of Fame, 1999
Eisner Award Hall of Fame, 2006

Ramona Fradon (born October 1, 1926)[1][2] is an American comic book and comic strip artist, known for her work illustrating Aquaman and Brenda Starr, and co-creating the superhero Metamorpho. Her career began in 1950.

Career

Fradon entered cartooning just after graduating from the Parsons School of Design.[3] Comic-book letterer George Ward, a friend of her husband (New Yorker cartoonist Dana Fradon),[3] asked her for samples of her artwork to pitch for job openings. She landed her first assignment on the DC Comics feature Shining Knight. Her first regular assignment was illustrating an Adventure Comics backup feature starring Aquaman, for which she co-created the sidekick Aqualad.[4]

Following her time with Aquaman, and taking a break to have her daughter, Fradon returned to co-create Metamorpho,[4][5] drawing four issues of the series. She returned briefly to design a few covers for the title.

From 1965 to 1972, Fradon left comics to raise her daughter.[6] In 1972, she returned to DC, with assignments drawing Superman, Batman, and Plastic Man. Her other work includes Freedom Fighters and Super Friends (which she penciled for almost its entire run). She also worked for Marvel Comics during this period, but left after only two assignments: a fill-in issue of Fantastic Four, and the never-published fifth issue of The Cat. Fradon recounted:
First of all, I was really rusty. And [on The Cat #5] I was totally confounded by not drawing from a script. They gave me this one paragraph and said go draw this 17-page story. I don’t think I did my best work by any means. I think I had a script on Fantastic Four, but I just don’t think they were satisfied with my work. Then I went back to DC and started doing mysteries with Joe Orlando. I really had a lot of fun doing that. It suited my style, I think.[6]

In 1980, Dale Messick retired from drawing the newspaper strip Brenda Starr, and Fradon became the artist for it, until her own retirement in 1995.[3][4]

Fradon was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.[7]

She contributed pencils to the 2010 graphic novel "The Adventures of Unemployed Man", and the 2012 graphic novels The Dinosaur That Got Tired of Being Extinct [8] and The Art of Ramona Fradon.[9]

Bibliography

DC

Marvel

Other

  • Choices #1 (1990, Angry Isis Press)
  • Nick Mag Presents (Mermaid Man) Spring 2003 (Nickelodeon)
  • Sea Ghost #1 (2010, Nemo Publishing)
  • Simpsons Super Spectacular (Radioactive Man) #5 (2007, Bongo Comics)
  • Sonic the Hedgehog #68 (1999, Archie Comics)
  • SpongeBob Comics (Mermaid Man) #3 (2011, Bongo Comics)
  • SpongeBob Comics Annual (Mermaid Man) #1 (2013, Bongo Comics)

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ U.S. Public Records Index Vol 1 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), 2010.
  2. ↑ Horn, Maurice, editor. 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics: an Illustrated Encyclopedia (Gramercy Books, U.S.A. (January 1, 1996), p. 64.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Fradon profile, Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928–1999.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Katherine Keller. "The Real Ramona: Ramona Fradon," Sequential Tart (May 2000).
  5. ↑ McAvennie, Michael; Dolan, Hannah, ed. (2010). "1960s". DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. Dorling Kindersley. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-7566-6742-9. "Scribe Bob Haney and artist Ramona Fradon were truly in their element...Haney and Fradon's collaborative chemistry resulted in [Rex] Mason becoming Metamorpho." 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Cassell, Dewey (August 2006). "Talking About Tigra: From the Cat to Were-Woman". Back Issue (17) (TwoMorrows Publishing). pp. 26–33. 
  7. ↑ "Alan Moore Back on Top for 2006 Eisner Awards," San Diego Comic-Con International. Accessed January 29, 2010.
  8. ↑ Baker, Bill (2012-02-14). "Books: Ramona Fradon on The Dinosaur That Got Tired of Being Extinct". The Morton Report. Retrieved 2013-10-18. 
  9. ↑ "Dynamite Announces "The Art of Ramona Fradon" Hardcover". Comic Book Resources. 2012-02-07. Retrieved 2013-10-18. 

References

Further reading

  • Career Retrospective, Gold & Silver: Overstreet's Comic Book Quarterly #6 (December 1994). p. 114. Overstreet Publications.
  • Interview, Comics Forum #20 (Autumn 1999), pp. 17–22. Comics Creators Guild.

External links

Preceded by
Ric Estrada		 Super Friends artist
1976–1981 		Succeeded by
Romeo Tanghal
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