| Marie Severin | |
|---|---|
 Marie Severin byMichael Netzer | |
| Born | (1929-08-21)August 21, 1929 East Rockaway, New York, U.S. |
| Died | August 29, 2018(2018-08-29) (aged 89) Massapequa, New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Penciller,Inker,Colourist |
Notable works | Doctor Strange,Namor the Sub-Mariner,Hulk,Not Brand Echh |
| Awards | 1974Shazam Award: Best Penciller (Humor Division);Will Eisner Comics Hall of Fame, 2001 2019Inkwell Awards Stacey Aragon Special Recognition Award |
Marie Severin (/məˈriːˈsɛvərɪn/;[1] August 21, 1929[2] – August 29, 2018)[3][4][5] was an Americancomics artist andcolorist best known for her work forMarvel Comics and the 1950s'EC Comics. She is an inductee of theWill Eisner Comics Hall of Fame[3] and theHarvey Awards Hall of Fame.[6]
Marie Severin was born inEast Rockaway, New York, onLong Island,[7] the second and last child of John Edward Severin, born inOslo, Norway, who immigrated to the United States at age 3,[2] and a mother, Marguerite (Powers) Severin,[8] fromSyracuse, New York,[2] whose heritage was Irish.[9] Her older brother,John Severin, was born in 1922. The family moved toBrooklyn, New York City, when Marie was 4.[7] She attended aCatholic grammar school and then the all-girl Bishop McDonnell Memorial High School.[10][11] The family lived in an apartment in theBay Ridge neighborhood at the time;[12] it is uncertain if this was the family's original Brooklyn locale from Severin's childhood or if the family moved to that neighborhood in the interim. Due to the high school's staggered schedule, Severin's class graduated in January 1948, rather than in mid-year as typical.[8]
Severin grew up in an artistic household where her father, aWorld War I veteran, eventually became a designer for the fashion companyElizabeth Arden during the 1930s.[13] In her teens, Severin took what she recalled as "a couple of months" of cartooning and illustration classes, and attendedPratt Institute in Brooklyn "for one day and said, 'This is a college', and I wanted to draw and make money".[13] Her first job was doing clerical work for an insurance company in downtown Manhattan "for a couple of years" while still living at home.[14] She continued living there after her father died.[8]
Severin was working onWall Street when her brother John, then an artist forEC Comics, needed a colorist for his work there.[13] Marie Severin's earliest recorded comic-book work is coloring EC Comics'A Moon, a Girl ... Romance #9 (Oct. 1949).[15] In a 2001 interview, she recalled she broke in as a colorist
... for all the war books at EC with[Harvey] Kurtzman. I went on to color all their books, they were happy with it, and I learned a lot about production color and how everything worked. ... I believe the color chart for the printed pages had a range of up to 48 colors. I had the full range; I would mix colors — golds, greens, blues, and so on — and you would intensify them so that the separators could see the difference. ... What they liked is that I really studied which colors looked best and sharper next to one another, the subtleties of it. I would also proofread the colors.[13]
She would contribute coloring across the company's line, including itswar comics and its celebrated but notoriously graphichorror comics, and also worked on the comics' production end, as well as "doing little touch ups and stuff" on the art.[13] When EC ceased publication in the wake of theU.S. Senate hearings on the effects of comic books on children and the establishment of theComics Code, Severin worked briefly forMarvel Comics' 1950s predecessor,Atlas Comics. After an industry downturn circa 1957, she left and found work with theFederal Reserve Bank of New York. She recalled in 2001, "I did a little bit of everything for them—I did television graphics on economics [and] I did a lot of drawing. I did a[n educational] comic book that my brother did the finished art on ... aboutchecks".[13][16]
Frank Jacobs, in his 1972 biography of EC publisherWilliam M. Gaines, wrote, "There was Marie Severin, Gaines's colorist, and a very moralCatholic, who made her feelings known by coloring dark blue any panel she thought was in bad taste.[EC editor Al] Feldstein called her 'the conscience of EC.'"[17]
Severin repeatedly refuted that assertion, which became part of comics lore,[18] while also saying she sometimes used coloring to "kind of shield" some gruesome content, noting,
I would never assume an editorial position. What I would do very often is, if somebody was being dismembered, I would rather color it in yellow because it's garish, and also [so] you could see what was going on. Or red, for the blood element, but not to subdue the artwork. ... I mean, the main reason these people were buying these books was to see somebody's head cut off, y'know? ... And [the editors] trusted me with a lot a stuff. They knew that I wouldn't subdue artwork; I would just kind of shield it a little bit so if a parent picked up the book in the drug store, they wouldn't see that somebody's stomach was all red.[19]
In 1959,[20] when the industry had picked up again during the period fans and historians call theSilver Age of Comic Books, Severin again worked forMarvel Comics in production. Severin recalled in 2001 that whenEsquire magazine requested an artist to illustrate a story "on the college drug culture", Marvel production managerSol Brodsky offered Severin rather than one of the regular artists, who were on deadline. Her illustration for the magazine led Marvel editor-in-chiefStan Lee to assign her the feature "Doctor Strange" inStrange Tales, replacingBill Everett,[21] who had succeeded character co-creatorSteve Ditko. With Lee, Severin co-created the fictional cosmic entity theLiving Tribunal inStrange Tales #157 (June 1967).[22] A panel illustrated by Severin for a July 1967 issue that featured both characters was later incorporated into the cover art ofPink Floyd’s sophomore album,A Saucerful of Secrets, released the next year.[23]
Severin was Marvel's headcolorist until 1972, at which point she turned most of her coloring duties over toGeorge Roussos so that she could do morepenciling assignments.[24] She continued to expand from colorist to do penciling andinking, and occasionally alsolettering, on various titles. She drew stories of theSub-Mariner and theHulk, and the covers or interiors of titles includingIron Man,Conan the Barbarian,Kull the Conqueror,[25]The Cat,[26] andDaredevil. Additionally, she worked on Marvel's satiric humor magazineCrazy Magazine, as well as the company's self-lampooning comic book,Not Brand Echh.[27]
In 1976, Severin co-createdSpider-Woman, designing her original costume.[28] She co-createdHoward the Duck villainDoctor Bong in 1977.[29] Two years later she provided the art for the Spider-Man and the Hulk toilet paper.[30][31]
In the 1980s, she was assigned to Marvel's Special Projects division, which handled non-comic book licensing. She helped design toy maquettes and film and television tie-ins products, and worked on the short-livedMarvel Books imprint of children's coloring books and sticker books.[32] During this time she also drew theFraggle Rock andMuppet Babies comics for Marvel'sStar Comics imprint.[33]
During the following decade, Severin penciled the "Impossible Tale" of the "Li'l Soulsearchers" in issue #31 (Aug. 1998) ofClaypool Comics'superhero-humor comicSoulsearchers and Company, inked by fellowSilver Age veteranJim Mooney; and she inkedDave Cockrum's penciling in issue #43 (July 2000). She also inkedRichard Howell's pencils on the story "Favor of the Month" inElvira #144 (April 2005).
Severin retired but continued into the mid-2000s to make occasional contributions, such as recoloring many of the comics stories reprinted in the EC-era retrospective booksB. Krigstein andB. Krigstein Comics. The former won both theHarvey andEisner comic-industry awards in 2003.
On October 11, 2007, Severin suffered a stroke, and was taken to Huntington Hospital, inHuntington onLong Island, to recover and recuperate.[34]
She died in 2018 at the age of 89.
Severin never married but she had a wide circle of friends. Her brother John Severin was an artist who worked for EC and Marvel; her niece, Ruth Larenas (d. 2023),[35] was a producer for her nephew John Severin Jr.'s Bubblehead Publishing.[36]
Severin won the Best Penciller (Humor Division)Shazam Award in 1974.[37] The following year, she was nominated for both Best Inker (Humor Division) and Best Colorist.[citation needed]
Severin spoke at a 1974 New YorkComic Art Convention panel on the role of women in comics, alongsideFlo Steinberg, Jean Thomas (sometime-collaborator with then-husbandRoy Thomas),Linda Fite (writer ofThe Claws of the Cat) and fan representative Irene Vartanoff.[38] She also participated in the Women of Comics Symposium at the 2006Paradise ComicsToronto Comicon.
Severin won anInkpot Award atSan Diego Comic-Con in 1988.[39]
She was the first inductee into theFriends of LuluWomen Cartoonists Hall of Fame in 1997.[40] She was inducted into theWill Eisner Comics Hall of Fame in 2001; she andBrenda Starr creatorDale Messick were the first women to be so inducted.[41]
Severin's work was among those included in theMuseum of Comic and Cartoon Art exhibition ofwomen comic-book artists,"She Draws Comics", July to November 2006.[42]
In consideration of her contributions to comics,ComicsAlliance listed Severin as one of twelve women cartoonists deserving of lifetime achievement recognition.[43] She received Comic-Con International's Icon Award in 2017.[44]
In 2019, Severin was posthumously awarded theInkwell Awards Stacey Aragon Special Recognition Award for her lifetime of inking artwork.[45] Severin was also inducted into theHarvey Awards Hall of Fame alongside her brotherJohn, and fellowMad contributorsWill Elder,Jack Davis, andBen Oda.[46]
{{cite news}}:Check|url= value (help);Missing or empty|title= (help)In 1967, [Marvel] launchedNot Brand Echh, a monthly comic book devoted to spoofs of the company's own heroes ... one of the mainstays of the series was Marie Severin, a gifted caricaturist who had worked for years on Marvel's production staff.
To many fans the Amazing Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk toilet paper is the ultimate '70s oddity, coming as it did at the tail end of the decade. For long visits to the bathroom, the roll actually featured a comic strip with art by Marie Severin – no doubt something she kept on her résumé for years.
In 1979, Oh Dawn! Inc. released "The Amazing Spider-Man & the Incredible Hulk" in "The Gamma Gambit," a short comic printed entirely on toilet tissue.
... John Severin, Jr., son of legendary comic book andCracked magazine artist John Severin, came into the picture. John, along with business partner and sister Ruth Larenas, had the notion to complete the remaining six chapters of the story and, along with the original six issues, publish them under one cover.
At a time when we're still discussing the problems facing women in comics, it's important to remember Marie Severin, who for a time was probablythe woman in mainstream comics.
| Preceded by | "Doctor Strange" feature inStrange Tales artist 1967 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Sub-Mariner artist 1969–1970 | Succeeded by John Buscema |
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