Sad news from King Features who reports that Mandrake the Magician cartoonist Fred Fredericks recently passed. I’m not finding wide-spread news about his passing, but according to Wikipedia, he passed on March 10.
MANDRAKE creator Lee Falk originally drew his Mandrake strip himself but soon turned the job over to artist Phil Davis, who illustrated the silken illusionist?s doings for more than 30 years. When Davis passed away, Falk chose Fred Fredericks to take the artistic reigns on the strip in 1965. Fredericks took over the writing of the strip when Lee, whom he says ?was one of a kind,? died in 1999.
Upon his retirement from the strip in 2013, Fredericks was the subject of a beautiful tribute post on ComicsKingdom.com by The Archivist.
Head over to ComicsKingdom to read that tribute published October 16, 2013.
Aw, darn it.
I met him at a convention once in 1972. Very nice and gracious to fans. I really liked his clean drawing style. Good figure posing and clarity of ink lines.
Once again, I’m left wishing I had contacted a person just to say HI and thank him/her.