Ramona Fradon
Ramona Fradon | |
---|---|
![]() Fradon at the New York Comic Con in Manhattan, October 9, 2010. | |
Born | 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".[4] Her first regular assignment was illustrating an Adventure Comics backup feature starring Aquaman.[5] She and writer Robert Bernstein co-created the sidekick Aqualad in Adventure Comics #269 (Feb. 1960).[6][7]
Following her time with Aquaman, and taking a break to have her daughter, Fradon returned to co-create Metamorpho.[7][8] She drew the character's two try-out appearances in The Brave and the Bold and the first four issues of the eponymous series[9] and returned briefly to design a few covers for the title. Fradon drew The Brave and the Bold #59 (April–May 1965), a Batman/Green Lantern team-up, the first time that series featured Batman teaming with another DC superhero.[10]
From 1965 to 1972, Fradon left comics to raise her daughter.[11] In 1972, she returned to DC where later in the decade she would draw Plastic Man, Freedom Fighters, and Super Friends which she penciled for almost its entire run.[4] 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.[12] 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.[11]
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][7]
Fradon was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.[13]
She contributed pencils to the 2010 graphic novel The Adventures of Unemployed Man, the 2012 graphic novel The Dinosaur That Got Tired of Being Extinct,[14] and the collection The Art of Ramona Fradon.[15]
Bibliography
Angry Isis Press
Archie Comics
Bongo Comics
DC Comics
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Marvel Comics
Nemo Publishing
Nickelodeon
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See also
References
- ↑ U.S. Public Records Index Vol. 1 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), 2010.
- ↑ Horn, Maurice (1996). 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics. New York, New York: Gramercy Books. p. 64. ISBN 978-0517124475.
- 1 2 3 Bails, Jerry (2006). "Fradon, Ramona". Who's Who of American Comic Books 1928–1999. Archived from the original on July 4, 2013.
- 1 2 Ramona Fradon at the Grand Comics Database
- ↑ Levitz, Paul (2010). "The Silver Age 1956–1970". 75 Years of DC Comics The Art of Modern Mythmaking. Cologne, Germany: Taschen. p. 347. ISBN 9783836519816.
She drew the strip from 1951 to 1961, the longest unbroken tenure any artist has had on the character.
- ↑ McAvennie, Michael; Dolan, Hannah, ed. (2010). "1960s". DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 98. ISBN 978-0-7566-6742-9.
Writer Robert Bernstein and artist Ramona Fradon provided a lifelong pal for Aquaman in a backup tale in this issue.
- 1 2 3 Keller, Katherine (May 2000). "The Real Ramona". Sequential Tart. Archived from the original on February 1, 2015.
- ↑ McAvennie "1960s" in Dolan, p. 114: "Scribe Bob Haney and artist Ramona Fradon were truly in their element...Haney and Fradon's collaborative chemistry resulted in [Rex] Mason becoming Metamorpho."
- ↑ Stroud, Bryan (May 2013). "Metamorpho in Action Comics". Back Issue!. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing (64): 23–24.
- ↑ McAvennie "1960s" in Dolan, p. 115: "By issue #50, The Brave and the Bold developed into the ultimate team-up book. The Brave and the Bold #59 added one final element to the team-up theme, when writer Bob Haney and artist Ramona Fradon partnered Batman with Green Lantern."
- 1 2 Cassell, Dewey (August 2006). "Talking About Tigra: From the Cat to Were-Woman". Back Issue!. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing (17): 26–33.
- ↑ Cassell, Dewey (February 2011). "The Lady and the Cat: The Story Behind the Unpublished Fifth Issue of Marvel Comics' The Cat". Back Issue!. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing (46): 3–7.
- ↑ "2000s Eisner Award Recipients". San Diego Comic-Con International. Archived from the original on October 6, 2014.
- ↑ Baker, Bill (February 14, 2012). "Books: Ramona Fradon on The Dinosaur That Got Tired of Being Extinct". The Morton Report. Archived from the original on October 31, 2014.
- ↑ "Dynamite Announces The Art of Ramona Fradon Hardcover". Comic Book Resources. February 7, 2012. Archived from the original on August 19, 2014.
Further reading
- The Art of Ramona Fradon (February 2014), Dynamite Entertainment, 144 pages, ISBN 978-1606901403
- 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
- Ramona Fradon at the Comic Book DB
- Ramona Fradon at Mike's Amazing World of Comics
- Ramona Fradon at the Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators
Preceded by n/a |
Metamorpho artist 1965–1966 |
Succeeded by Joe Orlando |
Preceded by Pablo Marcos |
Freedom Fighters artist 1976–1977 |
Succeeded by Dick Ayers |
Preceded by Ric Estrada |
Super Friends artist 1977–1981 |
Succeeded by Romeo Tanghal |