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merly the Impromptu Journal ) ( January 1998), http://astro.temple.edu/~camille/com
ics1.html; de Vos, G. “Storytelling and Folktales: A Graphic Exploration.” In Th e Infl uence
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Easton and Randy Schroeder, pp. 92–98. Jeff erson, NC: McFarland, 2008; Robinson,
Lillian S. Wonder Women: Feminisms and Superheroes. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Gail de Vos
FRADON, RAMONA (1926–). Ramona Fradon is an award-winning, groundbreaking
woman cartoonist, who in the 1950s was the only woman drawing for mainstream
comic books. She attended Parson’s School of Design for one year in 1945, before going
on to the Art Students’ League, where she studied from 1945–48. In 1952 she drew her
fi rst comic art, a war story, for Timely Comics , later to become Marvel Comics ; later
that same year she drew a four-page Shining Knight story for DC Comics.
Fradon became the regular artist for DC on Aquaman from 1953 through 1960,
co-creating and designing the character Aqualad. In 1960 she left comics for three
years, returning in 1963 to design the character Metamorpho and to draw four issues
of the comic book of that title. She left the fi eld of comics again, taking time off to raise
her daughter, then returned to DC in 1973, drawing, among other titles, Plastic Man
(1975) and Super Friends (1976–80). For Marvel she drew the Fantastic Four and Th e
Cat, a character whom she also designed.
Fradon retired from comic books in 1980, becoming the regular artist for the
newspaper strip Brenda Starr upon creator Dale Messick’s retirement. Fradon drew the
strip until 1995, when the art was taken over by June Brigman. Among the titles that
Fradon has worked on since her retirement from Brenda Starr is the cover of Dignify-
ing Science , a graphic novel collection about women scientists written and published by
Jim Ottaviani (2003), and a story for Radioactive Man , published by Bongo Comics
(2007).
Although Fradon is one of the rare women who can draw superhero action comics,
she has not been enthusiastic about working in that genre. She has said in interviews
that she prefers drawing “goofy” comics like Radioactive Man , Metamorpho , and Plas-
tic Man over traditional superhero stories. In a 1988 interview with Andy Mangels
in Amazing Heroes magazine, she said, “I was really not interested in drawing super
heroes—male fantasies, you know? People hitting each other or scheming to take over
the world.... Something that has always jarred my eyes is to see the kind of heaviness
and ugliness about most (male) comic art.” In a 2000 interview with Katherine Keller
on the Sequential Tart Web site, she comments, “with the superheroes it was these card-
board fi gures punching each other, that’s about the only interaction that ever went on.”
Fradon received the Inkpot Award at San Diego’s Comicon in 1996, and in 1999
she was inducted into the Women Cartoonist’s Hall of Fame by Friends of Lulu, an
organization that promotes participation in comics by women. In 2003 she received
