Photo courtesy of Comics Alliance
Marie Severin, best known for her work as an artist and colorist at Marvel and EC Comics, has passed away following a recent stroke which forced her into hospice care. She was aged 89.
Severin was was born in East Rockaway, New York, on August 21, 1929. She first broke into the comics industry in the late 1940s because her brother, John Severin, an artist at EC Comics, was in need of a colorist. Her earliest recorded work being in “A Moon, A Girl… A Romance” #9, which was released in October 1949. She also worked on the war books that were being released at the time, alongside Harvey Kurtzman. Following her time at EC, Severin worked for Atlas Comics, the predecessor to Marvel Comics, but after the industry took a downwards turn in 1957, she started working at Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Severin then returned to the comic book industry in 1959 at Marvel Comics. She was hired by Marvel production manager Sol Brodsky to work on a story on college drug culture. It was this work that caught the eye of Marvel editor-in-chief Stan Lee, and landed her the job of artist on ‘Doctor Strange’ in “Strange Tales” in 1967, succeeding Bill Everett, who had replaced Steve Ditko on the title. She was the Head Colorist up until 1972 when she gave up the role to focus on pencilling, which then resulted in her expanding to inking as well as lettering.
During her time, Severin worked on many famous titles including “Iron Man,” “Conan the Barbarian,” and “Daredevil,” and co-created several characters, most notably Spider-Woman, whose iconic original costume she was responsible for. She also worked on the company’s more humorous books, like “Not Brand Echh.”
She moved into Marvel’s Special Projects division in the 1980s, and was let go by the company in the late 1990s as part of their restructuring. She was inducted into the Will Eisner Comics Hall of Fame in 2001 and continued to work in the industry up until the mid-2000s when she retired. She recovered from a stroke in 2007 before suffering another in 2018.
Severin’s legacy is continued by her niece, Ruth Larenas, who is a producer at her nephew John Severin Jr.’s company, Bubblehead Publishing.
