Pioneering comic artist Ramona Fradon retires

Ramona Fradon has introduced her retirement. The 97-year outdated ends a profession as a pioneer for girls within the male-dominated comics business, with defining runs on Aquaman and extra at DC Comics, and a 15-year run on the syndicated comic strip Brenda Starr, Reporter. Although semi-retired from the grind of normal comics since 1995, Fradon had to this point been engaged on commissioned illustration work. No extra.

The information of Fradon’s retirement got here by way of her artwork seller Catskill Comics:

“After an extremely long run in the comic industry, at 97, Ramona has decided it’s time for her to retire. She will no longer be doing commissions. She apologizes to all the fans who have been waiting patiently on her wait list to get one. She did say though from time to time she’ll do a drawing or two to put up for sale on the website.”

Fradon, born October 2, 1926, grew to become knowledgeable comic artist and illustrator after graduating from New York’s Parsons School of Design in 1950, changing into one of many solely ladies working within the post-war comics business at a time the place most had been locked out as male artists returned from army service.

She discovered a cushty house at DC Comics engaged on the likes of Aquaman, Superman, Batman, Plastic Man, and extra. From 1951 her profession at DC started in earnest primarily engaged on Aquaman tales within the pages of Adventure Comics. Her in depth decade-long Aquaman run would see the Silver Age reinvention of the character, introduce the hero’s up to date backstory and secret identification (Arthur Curry, son of a lighthouse keeper and inheritor to the dominion of Atlantis) and outline the looks of the blond aquatic bombshell for a complete era. Fradon would additionally co-create new characters together with Aquaman’s teen sidekick Aqualad (with author Robert Bernstein, 1960), and superhero Metamorpho (with author Bob Haney, 1965).

In 1980, Fradon took over because the artist on the Chicago Tribune syndicated comic strip Brenda Starr, Reporter when its creator Dale Messick stepped away from the drafting board. Fradon would stay on the strip till 1995, initially working from scripts supplied by Messick, adopted by Linda Sutter and Mary Schmich.

In 1995 Fradon had introduced a retirement from the business, working as an alternative on commissioned illustration work offered by way of Catskill Comics. In May 2023 Fradon supplied a particular Lois Lane variant cowl for Superman #4.

Gwynne Watkins, who interviewed Fradon for Vulture in 2018, describes her private illustration model which she has sustained into her nineties:

“There she shows me piles of sketches, mostly copies of recent commissions. Every pencil line is clean and full of energy. Perhaps owing to that art school education, her sense of composition is flawless. Her heroes, by design, are all just a little more perfect than ordinary humans, more symmetrical, their perfectly arched feet and balletic arms suggesting graceful movements across the page. Even when the characters are still, there is a sense of kinetic energy. You can practically see them breathing.”