Ramona Fradon, R.I.P. (1926-2024)

From Steve Ringgenberg's 2-27-24 COMICS JOURNAL obituary for Ramona Fradon, co-creator of METAMORPHO:

Ramona Fradon, whose career of more than 75 years led the way for female artists in the comic book field, passed away February 24 at the age of 97. Before Fradon (and Barbara Hall, who drew the Black Cat feature for Harvey), there were no women drawing superheroes in comic books. She was especially known for her work on the DC characters Aquaman and Metamorpho, the latter of which she co-created with writer Bob Haney [...].

Fradon took a break from the business in the second half of the 1960s to raise her daughter, Amy. However, despite wanting to lessen her workload to focus on being a wife and mother, 1964 marked the debut of what is probably her best-known character: Metamorpho, the Element Man, who has long enjoyed a reputation as the strangest superhero in comics. Metamorpho originated with an idea from editor George Kashdan and was developed by writer Bob Haney and Fradon. “Metamorpho was George Kashdan's idea,” Fradon told Dueben. “He had studied science when he was in school and he thought of a character made of four elements who could change himself into different chemical compounds. He gave Bob Haney the idea, and Bob fleshed it out brilliantly. I believe George continued to supply the ‘scientific’ details for Bob to use throughout the life of the feature.”

Originally appearing in The Brave and the Bold #57 and #58 (Dec./Jan. 1964-65 and Feb./Mar. 1965), Metamorpho made such an impression with fans that he was awarded his own title beginning in August 1965, running for 17 issues; Fradon drew the two Brave and the Bold stories, and then the first four issues of the Metamorpho solo title. After working with staid and conventional characters like Aquaman, Metamorpho was a breath of fresh air to Fradon. “He wasn’t your average superhero, so capes and masks didn’t suit him,” she told Dueben. “I tried a lot of those and finally decided that since he was always changing his shape, clothes would get in the way. So, I drew him in tights, with a body made up of four different colors and textures that were supposed to indicate the four elements. From the beginning, we had fun working on Metamorpho. The characters Bob invented were such deliciously overdrawn stereotypes that they were wonderful to design and animate. What I liked most about doing that feature was the freedom it gave me to exaggerate and be myself…. Drawing superheroes never came easily to me. I didn't have the mythic sensibility and could never really take them seriously” [...].

As the 1980s dawned, Fradon was happy to part company with superheroes, which she felt were evolving in a direction that did not lend itself to her own upbeat, heroic approach. “Aquaman is a good marker of what’s happening,” she told Watkins in 2018. “When I was drawing him in the '50s, he was nice and wholesome, with a nice haircut and pink cheeks. Very handsome. I had a crush on him. And then you can see what’s happened to him! It got more and more violent and then he lost his hand, then he had a beard and he looked psychotic. You know what? I don’t get it.” Fradon had returned to school by then, attending classes in psychology and ancient religions at New York University; decades later, she would author a prose book, The Gnostic Faustus: The Secret Teachings Behind the Classic Text (Inner Traditions, 2007), expanding on these studies.

To read the entire obituary, click HERE.

You can purchase a copy of Fradon's THE GNOSTIC FAUSTUS right HERE.