Early in January, the wonderful comic book illustrator Ramona Fradon announced her retirement. Today, we have the sad news that she has left us altogether. She was 97.
Ramona was an absolute delight both in person and on the page. She was born Ramona Dom and the Fradon came from her years married to New Yorker cartoonist Dana Fradon. Her father was a famous designer of logos and advertising materials and when she displayed some talent for drawing, he steered her towards art school. Her husband encouraged her too as did a friend, George Ward, who worked as an assistant to Walt Kelly on Pogo.
She eventually found her way to DC Comics around 1950 where among other assignments, she became the regular artist on the Aquaman feature. It was never a full-time job for her. Marriage and raising a family took precedence but for years, she supplemented the family income drawing comic books — one of the few women in the field.
She left comics briefly in the early sixties and then returned a few years later to co-create the super-hero Metamorpho with writer Bob Haney, then left again after drawing six issues. Her unique style seemed so much a part of the feature that her replacements slavishly imitated (and sometimes traced) what she'd done in those six issues. It was a decent imitation but readers must have sensed something was missing: Sales reportedly plunged the minute Ramona Fradon was replaced by a draw-alike.
Ramona found her way back into comics in 1972 and DC gladly put her to work on Plastic Man, Freedom Fighters, Super Friends and a little more Metamorpho. She also worked for other companies and became popular on the convention circuit, drawing for fans and taking orders for commissions, mainly of Aquaman and Metamorpho. Eventually, she came to prefer the commissions to regular comic book work — more freedom, fewer deadlines. She also for a time drew the Brenda Starr newspaper strip.
Like so many of her fans — and she had a lot o' them — I loved meeting Ramona and talking with Ramona. We had her on many a panel and today, I can't help but think that yet another giant of comics' earlier days is gone. We have so few of them remaining and she was one of the nicest and one of the best.