Comic artist Ramona Fradon, who spent over 60 years working in the comic industry, passed away on February 24, 2024. She was 97 years old.

As a Silver Age comic strip and comic book artist, Ramona Fradon worked on DC’s Aquaman in the 1950s and ’60s and she co-created Metamorpho and Aqualad.

Fradon was born on October 1, 1926, in Chicago, and her career in comics began after graduating from Parsons School of Design. Fradon’s talent was quickly realized by DC Comics where she illustrated Shining Knight, followed by the Adventure Comics backup starring Aquaman. Together with writer Robert Bernstein, the pair co-created the sidekick Aqualad in Adventure Comics #269.

After briefly leaving to have her daughter, Fradon returned to DC to co-create Metamorpho. Fradon drew The Brave and the Bold #59, as well as a Batman/Green Lantern team-up – which was the first series to feature Batman teaming with another DC superhero. Between 1965 and 1972, Fradon left comics to raise her daughter. She returned in 1972 and began drawing Plastic Man, Freedom Fighters, and Super Friends for DC. Additionally, Fradon drew a fill-in issue of Fantastic Four and the never-published fifth issue of The Cat for Marvel.

In 1980, Dale Messick retired from drawing the newspaper strip Brenda Starr, passing the torch to Fradon. She illustrated the series until her own retirement in 1995. Fradon was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1995, adding to her previous honor of joining the Women Cartoonist Hall of Fame in 1999.

In the 2010s, Fradon contributed pencils to the graphic novels The Adventures of Unemployed Man, The Dinosaur That Got Tired of Being Extinct, and the collection The Art of Ramona Fradon.