Art For Art #160: The Legendary Ramona Fradon

by Richard Bruton

Art For Art’s Sake – making the world better for a long time now, with the finest comic art I can find to put before your eyes.

And this week, we end with one of the legends of comics, the wonder that is Ramon Fradon…

But first…

Marshall Rogers illustration from Who’s Who…

A little bit of a mini set of Dr Strange art now, all beginning with Lee Garbett – Death of Doctor Strange page

Charles Vess – Dr Strange

Shirahama Kanome – More Doc Strange

Mike Mignola – Dr Strange pin-up 1986

Fraser Irving – More of the Doc…

Francesco Francavilla – Preacher

Skottie Young – Harry Potter

Harvey Kurtzman – incredible things… plus gorgeous colours from Marie Severin

Lone Ranger by Enrico Marini

Tim Sale – Low Card in the Hole (Written by Brian Azzarello, from Solo #1)

Marco Rudy – Nick Fury

Mike Maihack – Harley & Kitty…

Another Mike Mignola – Man-Thing

Mindy Lee – Magik

Morris – Lucky Luke

And finally, Ramona Fradon, one of the truly legendary, if not as widely known as she should be, comic artists with a beautiful, immediately recognisable style.

Born in 1926, her comics career began in 1950, she’s worked on a series of characters and comics throughout the decades, including memorable runs on Aquaman, where she co-created Aqualad. She left comics for a while in the ’60s for the birth of her first child, but returned in 1965 to co-create Metamorpho, before returning full-time in the ’70s with work at Marvel and on Plastic Man and Super Friends at DC amongst others. In the ’80s, she moved from comics to newspaper strips, replacing creator Dale Messick on Brenda Starr.

She retired in 1995, but has been active with commissions and at conventions ever since.

At the time of writing this, Fradon is 95 and was, up until very recently, delighting fans with her beautiful commissions at Catskill Comics. Unfortunately, due to an injury to her drawing arm, she’s had to suspend commissions at the moment.

All we can do is wish her well, hope for a speedy recovery and pay tribute with a selection of her artwork.

This sums her up pretty well… A Comic Book Creator tribute cover with art by Robert Sikoryak and Stephan DeStefano (you can read a great piece on her in Comic Book Creator #13 [2016]), available to download here.