RIP Marie Severin

As you know, we lost Marie Severin last week, the Mirthful Mistress & First Lady of Comics. By all accounts, Marie was a lovely, funny lady who everybody adored, and I wish I'd had the chance to meet her.

Of course, her issues of Hulk, Doc Strange & Sub-Mariner are all-time classics ( hey, I just realised, she did The Defenders before they were The Defenders ), and boy, could she do humour.

But for me her greatest work remains Kull.

Some artists are simply born to draw certain characters. John Buscema on Conan, Gene Colan on Dracula, Paul Gulacy on Black Widow, we can all do the list.

But was there ever a more perfect teaming than John & Marie Severin with King Kull?

Like most artists of her generation, when asked, Marie would invariably say it was all just a job and nothing more. ' Boy's stuff ' she used to call it. But no one produces work like this unless they care.

The Severin siblings made the troubled King of Valusia stand out from his literary brother Conan, by showing every line of worry visible on his face. I always saw Kull as much more of a thinker and a dreamer than just a simple warrior king, which is why I liked him, and the Severin's always made sure to show that side of him. 

They also showed his world in exquisite detail, with architecture, clothing and landscape delineated to such a realistic point, that you felt you were looking at real history.

Here's a selection of portfolio pieces that show Marie & John at the absolute peak of their powers, and Kull at the peak of his.

And here's their adaptation of REH's poem The King And The Oak, which scared the crap out of me as a kid. ( Trees are scary. Fact. )

Thank you Marie.

Wally Wood's Plucked!

A quick detour back to the '50's today, with one of EC's ( and Wally Wood's ) greatest. It's co-written by EC founders Bill Gaines & Al Feldstein, as nearly all their material was, and coloured by a young Marie Severin.
Plucked is, if you think about it, one of the most terrifying things you'll ever read. Really. How do you know, for sure, that this isn't happening to you right now?

Kasper The Dead Baby

Here's a quickie but a goodie from Crazy #8, courtesy of Marv Wolfman and Marie Severin.
Kasper The Dead Baby won the Academy of Comic Book Arts humour award for 1974, and is actually an oddly disturbing and angry little strip. Disturbing because, before it turns into an EC like revenge fantasy, the domestic violence is actually quite unsettling. And angry because it's almost like Marvelous Marv has gone beyond simple satire, and taken it upon himself to be personally affronted with Harvey Comics' entire line of innocuous, loveable characters.
I mean, Steve Gerber? Don McGregor? Sure, you'd expect them to be taking a literary pickaxe to Harvey, but Marv? Not smiley ol' Marv, surely? Well, clearly yes, 'cos this is vitriolic stuff, and once seen, can't be unseen.

Kung Phew / Kung Fooey / Kung Fool / Kung Fooey

Seeing as how the Bronze Age humour mags usually focused on the same movies and TV shows each month, have you ever compared and contrasted how each one parodied a specific show, like say Kung Fu?
Huh? What's that you say? Who's got that amount of free time? Hush your mouth.

That was John Severin of course, with his version for Cracked. Now here's Stu Schwartzberg & Mike Ploog, from the premiere issue of Crazy:

And here's Mad's take, courtesy of Dick De Bartelo & Angelo Torres:

And because we're gluttons for punishment, let's close with Crazy's second go at the same material, by Marv Wolfman, Marie Severin & Herb Trimpe. I'd say this one's got the best script, while Ploog's has the best art. How 'bout you?