27 Facts About Marie Severin

Marie Severin was an American comics artist and colorist best known for her work for Marvel Comics and the 1950s' EC Comics.

Marie Severin is an inductee of the Will Eisner Comics Hall of Fame and the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame.

Marie Severin was born in East Rockaway, New York, on Long Island, the second and last child of John Edward Severin, born in Oslo, Norway, who immigrated to the United States at age 3, and a mother, Marguerite Severin, from Syracuse, New York, whose heritage was Irish.

Marie Severin's older brother, John Severin, was born in 1922.

Marie Severin grew up in an artistic household where her father, a World War I veteran, eventually became a designer for the fashion company Elizabeth Arden during the 1930s.

Marie Severin was working on Wall Street when her brother John, then an artist for EC Comics, needed a colorist for his work there.

Marie Severin's earliest recorded comic-book work is coloring EC Comics' A Moon, a Girl.

Marie Severin would contribute coloring across the company's line, including its war comics and its celebrated but notoriously graphic horror comics, and worked on the comics' production end, as well as "doing little touch ups and stuff" on the art.

When EC ceased publication in the wake of the US Senate hearings on the effects of comic books on children and the establishment of the Comics Code, Marie Severin worked briefly for Marvel Comics' 1950s predecessor, Atlas Comics.

Marie Severin has repeatedly refuted that assertion, which became part of comics lore, while saying she sometimes used coloring to "kind of shield" some gruesome content, noting,.

In 1959, when the industry had picked up again during the period fans and historians call the Silver Age of Comic Books, Marie Severin again worked for Marvel Comics in production.

Marie Severin recalled in 2001 that when Esquire magazine requested an artist to illustrate a story "on the college drug culture", Marvel production manager Sol Brodsky offered Marie Severin rather than one of the regular artists, who were on deadline.

Marie Severin was Marvel's head colorist until 1972, at which point she turned most of her coloring duties over to George Roussos so that she could do more penciling assignments.

Marie Severin continued to expand from colorist to do penciling and inking, and occasionally lettering, on various titles.

Marie Severin drew stories of the Sub-Mariner and the Hulk, and the covers or interiors of titles including Iron Man, Conan the Barbarian, Kull the Conqueror, The Cat, and Daredevil.

Marie Severin co-created Howard the Duck villain Doctor Bong in 1977.

Marie Severin helped design toy maquettes and film and television tie-ins products, and worked on the short-lived Marvel Books imprint of children's coloring books and sticker books.

On October 11,2007, Marie Severin suffered a stroke, and was taken to Huntington Hospital, in Huntington on Long Island, to recover and recuperate.

Marie Severin won the Best Penciller Shazam Award in 1974.

Marie Severin spoke at a 1974 New York Comic Art Convention panel on the role of women in comics, alongside Flo Steinberg, Jean Thomas, Linda Fite and fan representative Irene Vartanoff.

Marie Severin participated in the Women of Comics Symposium at the 2006 Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon.

Marie Severin won an Inkpot Award at the San Diego Comic Con in 1988.

Marie Severin was inducted into the Will Eisner Comics Hall of Fame in 2001; she and Brenda Starr creator Dale Messick were the first women to be so inducted.

Marie Severin's work was among that included in the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art exhibition of women comic-book artists, "She Draws Comics", July to November 2006.

In 2019, Marie Severin was posthumously awarded the Inkwell Awards Stacey Aragon Special Recognition Award for her lifetime of inking artwork.

Marie Severin was inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame alongside her brother John, and fellow Mad contributors Will Elder, Jack Davis, and Ben Oda.

Marie Severin's brother John was an artist who worked for EC and Marvel; her niece, Ruth Larenas, is a producer for her nephew John Severin Jr.