The Daily Comic Book Coffee, number 41: Today we have selected panels from Plastic Man #14, penciled by Ramona Fradon, inked by Mike Royer, and written by Elliot S Maggin, published by DC Comics with an Aug-Sept 1976 cover date.
It’s a late night at the headquarters of the National Bureau of Investigation, and the Chief tells his secretary Sundae to put on some coffee while he briefs his agents about a dangerous new threat to national security. The Chief details to Plastic Man, Woozy Winks and Gully Foyle the gruesome origins of the oozing menace known as “Meat By-Product… The Dump That Walks!” By the time the Chief is finished describing this monstrosity in excruciating detail, Plas and Co are so completely grossed out that when Sundae attempts to serve them coffee, donuts and cream-filled Danishes, they’re ready to toss their cookies.
I love Ramona Fradon’s artwork. She has such a distinctive, unconventional, cartoony style. She brought a very offbeat, fun, comedic sensibility to Metamorpho the Element Man, the character she co-created with writer Bob Haney and editor George Kashdan in 1965. That definitely made her very well-suited to draw Plastic Man a decade later. Fradon stated in interviews that Plastic Man was one of her favorite characters to have worked on.
Fradon is inked here by Mike Royer. Fradon loved Royer’s inking of her pencils on this story, and has said she wishes they’d had other opportunities to work together. It’s certainly a great collaboration.
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