Ramona Dom Fradon (/ˈfreɪdən/;[3] October 2, 1926 – February 24, 2024) was an American comics artist known for her work illustrating Aquaman and Brenda Starr, Reporter, and co-creating the superhero Metamorpho.
Her father was a well known commercial lettering man and designed logos for Elizabeth Arden, Camel, and Lord & Taylor as well as the typeface Dom Casual.
[11] Soon after she left art school, she married her husband, New Yorker cartoonist Dana Fradon, who encouraged her to try cartooning.
Comic-book letterer George Ward, a friend of her husband,[11] asked her for samples of her artwork to pitch for job openings.
[14] Alongside said revamp, she and writer Robert Bernstein co-created the sidekick Aqualad in Adventure Comics #269 (February 1960).
[16][17] She drew the characters to try-out appearances in The Brave and the Bold and the first four issues of the eponymous series[18] and returned briefly to design a few covers for the title.
"[19] Fradon drew The Brave and the Bold #59 (April–May 1965), a Batman/Green Lantern team-up, the first time that series featured Batman teaming with another DC superhero.
[20] Based on an idea by DC editor George Kashdan and co-created by Bob Haney and Fradon,[21] the character Metamorpho first appeared in The Brave and the Bold #57 and 58 in January and March 1965 before headlining a 17-issue run of the character's self-titled series from August 1965 through March 1968.
Metamorpho allowed Fradon to use an exaggerated drawing style which suited her better than the traditional approach to superhero illustration.
[22] In 1972, she returned to DC where later in the decade she would draw Plastic Man, Freedom Fighters, and Super Friends which she penciled for almost its entire run.
[24] Fradon died of heart failure at her home in Ulster County, New York, on February 24, at the age of 97.
I thought that was a big failing of mine, that I couldn't emulate that kind of photographic reproduction style.