564 SEVERIN, MARIE
In 1950, Severin and Elder followed Kurtzman over to EC Comics to work on
Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat. Kurtzman felt that both artists complemented
each other wonderfully and created some of the fi nest work ever done in the genre of
war books. Eventually this partnership did break up. Severin stated it was on friendly
terms and that both were just “set to go on our own.” Severin continued to work at EC
and was an important contributor to Kurtzman’s MAD Magazine, his work appearing
in 9 of the fi rst 10 issues. Severin never worked on any of the EC horror comics simply
because, he claimed, working on such subject matter made him sick. Severin was editing
Two-Fisted Tales at the time of EC’s collapse in the mid-1950s.
In 1956 Severin accepted a staff position with Stan Lee at Atlas, working primarily
on Westerns. When Atlas became Marvel in the early 1960s, Severin worked on a
variety of material including Th e Hulk, and a long run inking Sgt. Fury and His Howling
Commandos for which he won the Alley Cat Award for Best War Title of 1967 and
- Also, Severin was the main artist for Cracked from the fi rst issue in 1958 until
very recently and he freelanced for Warren Publications (Creepy and Blazing Combat)
and DC (Sgt. Rock).
In the 1970s he teamed up with his younger sister and longtime EC colorist, Marie
Severin, to work on Marvel’s Kull the Conqueror. In 2003, Severin worked on Marvel’s
highly publicized and controversial gay interpretation of Rawhide Kid. When asked
what his favorite work had been, Severin replied that it had been “at EC, Warren, and
Cracked because he had the most free expression with them.” In 2003, John Severin was
inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame.
Selected Bibliography: Geissman, Grant. Foul Play!; Th e Art and Artists of the Notorious
1950s E.C. Comics! New York: Collins Design, 2005.
John F. Weinzierl
SEVERIN, MARIE (1929–). Marie Severin is an award-winning, pioneering woman
cartoonist. In the 1960s she was the only woman drawing for mainstream comic
books. In the 1970s, she was one of two women drawing for the mainstream, the
other being Ramona Fradon. It is symbolic that Stan Lee, who liked to give rhyming
or alliterative names to the Marvel creators (Sturdy Steve Ditko, Jolly Jack Kirby,
Genial Gene Colan) refereed to Marie Severin as “Marie the She,” for indeed, she was
the only “she” drawing for Marvel at the time.
Severin attended Pratt Institute for exactly one day before deciding that what they
were teaching was not what she was interested in learning. Subsequently she attended
and graduated from the Cartoonists and Illustrators school in the early 1950s. In 1952,
at the suggestion of her brother John Severin, who was one of the EC artists, Severin
went to work for EC Comics. She started as a Girl Friday, but soon progressed to
doing full-time production, coloring, and researching as Harvey Kurtzman’s assistant.
Th e fi rst book she worked on was “A Moon, A Girl... Romance,” which had formerly
been Moon Girl comics, but she worked on all the EC books, fi nally leaving when, as
