Cartoonist Marie Severin in her studio.
I had interviewed a bunch of people between 1972 and 1976 and I met guys who were "sort of in" "sort of not in" at Marvel. And someone told me that Marie was being actively shunned at Marvel and the reason was that she had been there so long (she either went directly from EC to Marvel or with very few intervening steps) that they were going to have to provide her a company pension when she reached
retirement age and Marvel (Martin Goodman, I infer) didn't want to do that. So the idea was passed around that everyone was supposed to ignore her, she was to be given second- and third-rate assignments and progressively smaller and smaller working space in the hopes that she would quit. You hear a lot of stories in the comic-book field. I made it a habit to NOT pass them on or to qualify iras "this is
just what I heard". Caveat emptor.
In 1982 on the FIRST US TOUR, Deni and I went up to Marvel when we were in NYC and I was standing in the hall talking to two people I knew there (who I hope I haven't named elsewhere) and Marie Severin walked by. And I stopped talking or listening because it's, you know, THE Marie Severin. My eyes following her down the hall. And I turned to the people I was talking with with an obvious "Wasn't that…?" look on my face and was met with a distinct "WHAT Marie Severin?" look
from both of them.
So, maybe it was my imagination or maybe it wasn't just a story. As I say, caveat emptor.
Dave Sim on Marie Severin's mistreatment at Marvel. I buy this entirely.
#comics #MarieSeverin
