Legendary comic book artist John Severin
has died. He was ninety years old.
John Severin is best known for his work for EC Comics, specialising in drawing war stories for
Two-Fisted Tales and
Frontline Combat. His clean drawings and high technical accuracy are still admired today. He also worked on the comic book version of
Mad, one of the five original artists, together with Wally Wood, Will Elder, Jack Davis and of course Harvey Kurtzman.
When work at EC dried up, Severin went working for Atlas and later Marvel Comics, again on war stories, but also on the superhero series Marvel debuted from the early sixties, working as inker over people like Herb Trimpe. His work on
Conan the Barbarian as well as
King Kull, where he collaborated with his sister Marie Severin, was highly regarded and absolutely gorgeous.
He still worked as late as the last decade, e.g. on the 2003
Rawhide Kid miniseries, a character he had also worked on in the 1950ties.
Unlike some of his EC counterparts, there hasn't been one specific series or character he has been identified with, but everything he did is worth looking out for, just for the sheer lush artwork he could produce.
.
posted by CCBC at 1:18 PM on February 14, 2012