Month: February 2024

Legendary comic book artist Ramona Fradon has passed away at 97 years old.

This is one of those occasions when I feel ill-equipped to write an obituary on this blog. Perhaps that is due to the fact that during her lifetime Fradon was interviewed on a number of occasions, most extensively by Howard Chaykin for the book The Art of Ramona Fradon published by Dynamite Entertainment in 2013. Another excellent interview was conducted by Jim Amash for Alter Ego #69 (June 2007) from TwoMorrows Publishing. Therefore, I feel like whatever biographical information I might post here would only be reiterating what Fradon herself already recounted with genuine life & passion.

So, instead, I am merely going to share my own personal thoughts on Fradon as an artist and as a person.

By the way, if you haven’t already, I encourage you to purchase The Art of Ramona Fradon. The conversations between Fradon and Chaykin are marvelous and informative, and the book features a treasure trove of Fradon’s work across her decades-long career.

Having gotten into comic books in the late 1980s, I missed much of Fradon’s work for DC Comics. I also admit to all-but-ignoring her work on the Brenda Starr newspaper strip because I was a teenager, and what teenage boy wants to read a romance series? I fully cop to making some foolish decisions in my younger years that I now regret!

I finally discovered Fradon in the late 1990s and early 2000s when her older work was just beginning to get reprinted by DC Comics, and she was doing some new material for smaller publishers, such as her charming cover illustration of Hedy Lamarr for Dignifying Science, Jim Ottaviani’s book about women scientists, which was illustrated by a line-up of female artists, which was published in 1999 book by G.T. Labs.

Fradon lived in upstate New York, and so she was a regular guest at conventions in the tri-state area. I first met her at the All-Time Classic New York Comic Book Convention held in White Plains, NY in June 2000. At the time I had just started my Beautiful Dreamer theme sketchbook. I knew Fradon had a genuine affinity for drawing lovely ladies, and so I asked her to do a piece in the book.

Now keep in mind Fradon had never read Forever People by Jack Kirby. She was totally unfamiliar with the character. Nevertheless, she agreed to do a Beautiful Dreamer sketch for me, and she proceeded to draw a wonderful sketch. A quarter century later Fradon’s piece still remains one of the very best in the entire sketchbook.

That was the sort of person Fradon was. In interviews she admitted that she wasn’t a fan; for her drawing comics was merely a job. Nevertheless, she was a consummate professional, always doing her very best on every single job she did. And she was always kind enough to try to draw whatever odd or unexpected character requests fans might give her for convention sketches & commission illustrations.

I next met Fradon at one of the Big Apple Comic Con shows, back when they were in the church basement near Columbus Circle. I purchased an illustration of Metamorpho, the absolutely wonderful elemental shape-changer that she had co-created with writer Bob Haney and editor George Kashdan at DC Comics in 1964.

I regret to say that, following the Great Recession in 2009, I was out of work for quite some time. During the next several years I sold off much of my collection of comic book artwork to help pay the bills, and the Metamorpho by Fradon was one of those that I reluctantly parted with. Hey, I did mention regrets before, didn’t I?

I eventually acquired a copy of 1st Issue Special #3 (cover-date June 1975) which had Haney & Fradon’s one-off return to Metamorpho a decade after their original work on the character. I had Fradon autograph that book for me, which took some of the sting out of losing the original art.

While I never did obtain another Metamorpho sketch from Fradon, I did purchase a charming Catwoman piece by her through her art rep Scott Kress of Catskill Comics. I previously blogged about that one, but I’m going to share it again here. I also bought a piece of Brenda Starr artwork as a holiday gift for Michele, which she loved.

Fradon’s artwork was always charming, always had this enjoyable quality to it. It was fun. Even on the darker stories she drew for DC Comics’ horror anthologies, there was a certain charm & humor to her work. It was always a joy to view her art.

One of Fradon’s very few jobs for Marvel Comics was guest-penciling Fantastic Four #133 (April 1973). Fradon would later acknowledge that she was much more comfortable working from the full scripts of DC Comics than the relatively short plots that Marvel specialized in giving their pencilers at the time. Fradon would offer the opinion that inker Joe Sinnott saved the art on “Thundra at Dawn!”

Nevertheless, as a huge fan of old-school Marvel Comics, I find that issue to be a fun combination of Fradon and Sinnott’s two distinctive art styles. I actually feel that Fradon’s work really enhances the comedic aspect of the brawl between the Thing and Thundra atop the Unisphere in a way that might not have been there if FF regulars John Buscema or Rich Ruckler had penciled it in a more traditional, straightforward manner.

The last time I met Fradon at a comic con, I smiled and told her, “I know that you’ve said that drawing comic books was just a job for you, but I wanted you to know that a lot of people genuinely love your work.” She smiled back and, with an implied shrug, merely responded, “Well, I always tried to do the best work I could.” Fradon was modest like that, about her incredible talent, and about the impact she had on so many readers over the decades.