Posted By Dan Greenfield on Feb 25, 2024 | 5 comments

The Aquaman expert pays tribute to the storied illustrator, who has died at age 97…

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When I heard the news Saturday that the great comics illustrator Ramona Fradon had died at 97, I immediately contacted Rob Kelly, who has a particularly sharp perspective on the artist’s work. Rob is, without hyperbole, the world’s foremost authority on Aquaman and also co-hosted the recently completed For All Mankind, a Fire and Water Podcast Network show devoted to the Super Friends comic book of the 197os. Here’s his appreciation. — Dan

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By ROB KELLY

Ramona Fradon was one of the greatest comic book artists the medium has ever produced. Her work was fully realized—it presented a four-color world that made complete sense on its own terms, and could not be mistaken for anyone else’s.

I first discovered her via the pages of Super Friends, not knowing that she had already years of experience rendering the adventures of my favorite Super Friend, Aquaman. Fradon took over the Aquaman strip in Adventure Comics with Issue #167, which went on sale June 1951, and continued on it for an entire decade, ending with Issue #282, and then continuing in World’s Finest for another two years. Outside of his appearances in Justice League of America starting in 1960, for 12 straight years, Aquaman was rendered by just one artist—Ramona Fradon.

Fradon illustrated the 1950s Variant Cover for DC’s Aquaman 80th Anniversary issue in 2021.

During the lean years for superheroes in comics, only Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman managed to hang on with solo titles. But Aquaman and Green Arrow were there, too, month after month, filling the back pages of Adventure Comics. I fully believe that a large reason why Aquaman managed to hang on long enough for the Silver Age to start is because of the visual inventiveness that Fradon brought to the strip.

With a couple of exceptions (Aquaman’s new origin from Adventure #260, Aqualad’s debut in #269), for decades most of these strips were completely unavailable, discoverable only to die-hard Aquaman fans (like myself) in dusty back issue boxes. Often, these at-times very silly stories were not the kind of Aquaman adventures I was used to, but they always delighted me, if for no other reason than Fradon’s peerless work.

Ramona Fradon’s professional comics career continued into her mid-90s, an astonishing level of consistent creativity nearly unmatched in the medium. It says something about how much great work she produced that I could limit the range of my tribute to just her Aquaman strips for Adventure Comics. So here are 13 AQUAMAN SPLASH PAGES from that memorable run:

Adventure Comics #180

Adventure Comics #189

Adventure Comics #190

Adventure Comics #199

Adventure Comics #200

Adventure Comics #209

Adventure Comics #226

Adventure Comics #229

Adventure Comics #251

Adventure Comics #254

Adventure Comics #260

Adventure Comics #266

Adventure Comics #272

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MORE

— 13 SUPER FRIENDS COVERS: A RAMONA FRADON Celebration. Click here.

— 13 GREAT SKETCHES: A RAMONA FRADON Celebration. Click here.

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Rob Kelly is a podcaster, writer, illustrator, and film historian. You can find his work at robkellycreative.com.