RIP to Ramona Fradon - A genuine legend
Feb. 25th, 2024 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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scans_dailyCatskill Comics, her art agents, confirmed last night that legendary artist Ramona Fradon has passed away at the age of 97.
Her career as a professional comics artist started in 1951 (So, with seven years off in the mid 60's for raising her child, she was an artist from six years after the Second World War ended until she announced her retirement... last MONTH!)
She was less interested in comics growing up, than she was in newspaper strips, and decided to try when her husband, already a cartoonist recommended it.
Her first work for DC Comics was on "Shining Knight", followed by Aquman, where she was part of the foundation of the Silver Age Aquaman, including co-creating Aqualad with writer Robert Bernstein, and adding Topo the Octopus as a regular "pet".
She retained a fondness for the characters for the rest of her career, and decades later was even invited to draw several stories with MermaidMan and Barnacle Boy for SpongeBob comics.
With editor George Kashdan and writer Bob Haney she co-created Metamorpho in 1965, who became another signature character and was the artist for his debut in "The Brave and the Bold" and then for all 17 issues of his first solo run.
During the 70s she pencilled the Freedom Fighters, Plastic Man and Super Friends.
For one of my favourite issues of Super Friends that she drew, check here
(One of the first comics I remembering spending my own money on back in the 70's was a Super Friends issue with Plastic Man guest starring!)
From 1980 to 1995, she became the artist for the newspaper strip, "Brenda Starr , Girl Reporter" when she retired.
She continued commission work, and was a popular guest at any number of conventions (Sadly, none in the UK, because I would have been there like a shot if she had)
And her work was still popular in later years, from DC bringing her back for a special cover for DC@s "Silvr Age" event:
To covers for Wonder Woman: Black and Gold
And even a cover for another, rather different amphibious hero.
And none of this is even counting the commissions that she produced right up until, as mentioned, last month, in her distinctive charming style, which she described in an interview in 1988 as
Trina Robbins made the observation that most women tend to have a more open style, use less shadow, and work in bigger open patterns. I think that's probably true—at least I always did (work in that style). I thought that was a big failing of mine, that I couldn't emulate that kind of photographic reproduction style. When I read that this seemed to be a characteristic of women cartoonists, it made me feel a bit better about it. ... Something that always jarred my eyes is to see the kind of heaviness and ugliness about most comic art. There's not much sweetness to it. It's the tradition, and I don't think it has anything to do with the individual artists. It's just the tradition ... the look. That always troubled me.
So, rest well ma'am, your career was legendary and your legacy outstanding.
I know I speak for the whole s_d community in passing our sympathies to her family and friends.
Her career as a professional comics artist started in 1951 (So, with seven years off in the mid 60's for raising her child, she was an artist from six years after the Second World War ended until she announced her retirement... last MONTH!)
She was less interested in comics growing up, than she was in newspaper strips, and decided to try when her husband, already a cartoonist recommended it.
Her first work for DC Comics was on "Shining Knight", followed by Aquman, where she was part of the foundation of the Silver Age Aquaman, including co-creating Aqualad with writer Robert Bernstein, and adding Topo the Octopus as a regular "pet".
She retained a fondness for the characters for the rest of her career, and decades later was even invited to draw several stories with MermaidMan and Barnacle Boy for SpongeBob comics.
With editor George Kashdan and writer Bob Haney she co-created Metamorpho in 1965, who became another signature character and was the artist for his debut in "The Brave and the Bold" and then for all 17 issues of his first solo run.
During the 70s she pencilled the Freedom Fighters, Plastic Man and Super Friends.
For one of my favourite issues of Super Friends that she drew, check here
(One of the first comics I remembering spending my own money on back in the 70's was a Super Friends issue with Plastic Man guest starring!)
From 1980 to 1995, she became the artist for the newspaper strip, "Brenda Starr , Girl Reporter" when she retired.
She continued commission work, and was a popular guest at any number of conventions (Sadly, none in the UK, because I would have been there like a shot if she had)
And her work was still popular in later years, from DC bringing her back for a special cover for DC@s "Silvr Age" event:
To covers for Wonder Woman: Black and Gold
And even a cover for another, rather different amphibious hero.
And none of this is even counting the commissions that she produced right up until, as mentioned, last month, in her distinctive charming style, which she described in an interview in 1988 as
Trina Robbins made the observation that most women tend to have a more open style, use less shadow, and work in bigger open patterns. I think that's probably true—at least I always did (work in that style). I thought that was a big failing of mine, that I couldn't emulate that kind of photographic reproduction style. When I read that this seemed to be a characteristic of women cartoonists, it made me feel a bit better about it. ... Something that always jarred my eyes is to see the kind of heaviness and ugliness about most comic art. There's not much sweetness to it. It's the tradition, and I don't think it has anything to do with the individual artists. It's just the tradition ... the look. That always troubled me.
So, rest well ma'am, your career was legendary and your legacy outstanding.
I know I speak for the whole s_d community in passing our sympathies to her family and friends.
