Fred Fredericks
| Fred Fredericks | |
| Biographical information | |
| Born: | August 9, 1929 |
|---|---|
| Died: | N/A |
| Nationality: |  American
|
| Occupation: | Artist, Cover artist |
| Website: | N/A |
Harold "Fred" Fredericks Jr. (born August 9, 1929) is an American cartoonist born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, who has drawn the "Mandrake the Magician" comic strip for over 40 years, taking over for the late Phil Davis.
Biography
Fredericks sold his first cartoon at the age of 18, and in the late 1940's he worked for The Press of Atlantic City. In 1950 he joined the marine corps and served in the Korean War. After ending his military career in 1953 he attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City. At the same time he began to create historical comics aswell as commercial illustrations. Several of his historical comics were syndicated in the late 1950's and early 1960's.
In the 1960's he began to create comic books for Gold Key and Dell, including Nancy, The Twilight Zone, Mighty Mouse, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Bullwinkle, Mister Ed and The Munsters.
In 1964, Fredericks created the comic strip "Rebel" which was published in Scholastic Scope, a magazine distributed to schools in USA. Fredericks produced the strip for over 30 years and it has also been reprinted in collections.
In early 1965, Fredericks became the new artist on the "Mandrake the Magician" newspaper strip, after Phil Davis had passed away. Creator Lee Falk modernized the comic when Fredericks took over the strip, making it more reality-based by focusing less on science fiction and fantasy, and making Mandrake operate more like a secret agent, often helping out the police with cases they could not solve.
Fredericks returned to comic books in the late 1980's, first as inker on the Defenders of the Earth comic book where he and penciller Alex Saviuk got the chance to draw Mandrake, the Phantom and Flash Gordon. After that, Fredericks remained as a productive inker until the mid-1990's on several comic books for Marvel Comics and DC Comics, for example The Punisher War Journal, Nth Man: the Ultimate Ninja, Daredevil, G.I. Joe and Ren & Stimpy.
He is also well known for inking "The Phantom" Sunday strips from 1995 to 2000, after which Graham Nolan took over the Sundays. He also inked one week of Phantom daily strips in 1996 that was published in American newspapers the same week that the Phantom movie premiered.
After creator Lee Falk died in 1999, Fredericks has also been responsible for writing the scripts for the Mandrake strip by himself. He retired from the Sunday strip in 2002, but continues to produce new daily strip stories as of 2008, often with guest appearances or cameos by The Phantom or other characters from the Phantom strip.