“Besides John Severin’s inimitable style, there was a feeling of total authenticity to whatever he drew.”— Stan Lee
remaining a workhorse up ’til his final art at age 89. Included in this volume is an “American Eagle” section (with two epic adventures starring the Native American hero), eye-popping art, and extensive personal photos and artifacts (including WWII “Victory Mail” cartoons, handmade greeting cards for his family, and other rarely-seen material). Written by GREG BIGA and multiple Eisner Award-winner JON B. COOKE, this retrospective includes an Introduction by HOWARD CHAYKIN, Foreword by MORT TODD, and Afterword by CHUCK DIXON. With testimonials by many of the late artist’s peers, this profusely illustrated book celebrates the 100th anniversary of the twofisted artist’s birth.
John Severin: Two-Fisted Comic Book Artist is the spirited biography of one of the most prolific creators in the history of American comics. From a start in 1947 at the Simon & Kirby shop, he co-created the legendary Western strip American Eagle, and became an EC Comics mainstay, working with Harvey Kurtzman on MAD, Frontline Combat, and Two-Fisted Tales. In addition to a 40+ year association with Cracked magazine, his pivotal Marvel Comics work included an extended run inking Sgt. Fury and The Hulk, and teaming with sister Marie Severin to create the definitive version of Robert E. Howard’s Kull the Conqueror. Throughout a storied career, Severin freelanced for virtually every major publisher, ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-106-6 ISBN-10: 1-60549-106-3 53995
9 781605 491066
John Severin caricature by Marie Severin. Coloring by Glenn Whitmore. Eagle TM & © the estate of John Severin.
$39.95 in the USA ISBN: 978-1-60549-106-6
TwoMorrows Publishing
Raleigh, North Carolina PRINTED IN CHINA
JOHN SEVERIN Two-Fisted Comic Book Artist Written by Gregory Biga & Jon B. Cooke • Editing, Design, and Production by Jon B. Cooke Proofread by Kevin Sharp • Published by John Morrow Published with the cooperation of the Estate of John P. Severin
Dedication
This book is dedicated to and in loving memory of our dad, John Powers Severin, one of the finest illustrators of the 20th and 21st centuries. He was a wholly unique human being, with a distinctive artistic talent. He was a patriot, historian, critical thinker, and a God-fearing tough guy from Brooklyn. It was as fascinating to talk to him as it was to watch him draw. We thank God for letting us borrow him (and his gal) for awhile. — Michelina Severin VanGemert
The authors extend their deepest appreciation to Michelina Severin VanGemert
for her generous help, unyielding patience, and continual support
American Eagle comics restoration by Chris Fama
Special thanks to DREW FRIEDMAN for his portrait of John P. Severin, which originally appeared in Heroes of the Comics: Portraits of the Pioneering Legends of Comic Books. Heroes and its companion volume, More Heroes of the Comics, are published by Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, Washington. Front cover image adapted from Prize Comics Western #108 cover by John Severin. Back cover color by Glenn Whitmore. Title page John Severin self-portrait drawn for Famous Cartoonist Button Series produced by Kitchen Sink Press in 1973. Back cover John Severin caricature by Marie Severin produced for Graphic Story Magazine #13 [Spring 1971].
For assistance with this book, the authors extend thanks to:
Ger Apeldoorn, Richard Arndt, Mark Arnold, Bob Bailey, John Benson, Len Brown, Dewey Cassell, Ray Cuthbert, Meb Dawkins, Mike Dubisch, Fantagraphics Books, Steven Fears, Arnie Fenner, Greg Goldstein, Karen Green, Gary Groth, Ted Haycraft, Roger Hill, Cathy Hubka, Denis Kitchen, Stacey Kitchen, Bill Leach, Russ Maheras, Marvel Entertainment, Pat Mazza, Bud Plant, Steve Ringgenberg, Mark Schultz, Cory Sedlmeier, Aaron Sultan, Maggie Thompson, and Dr. Michael J. Vassallo
For providing testimonials, the authors extend our appreciation and gratitude to:
Neal Adams, Jon Bogdanove, John Byrne, Richard Corben, Steve Fastner, Drew Friedman, Russ Heath, Bob McLeod, Jerry Ordway, Steve Rude, Walter Simonson, Joe Sinnott, Roy Thomas, Mike Vosburg, and James Warren John Severin: Two-Fisted Comic Book Artist © Gregory Biga and Jon B. Cooke Editorial package © Gregory Biga, Jon B. Cooke, and TwoMorrows Publishing First Printing • November 2021 • Printed in China • Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-106-6 Voices © American Academy of Psychotherapists/Squa Tront © John Benson/”The Million-Year Picnic” © Ray Bradbury Literary Works LLC/Action Comics Weekly, Enemy Ace, G.I. Combat, The Losers, Our Army at War, Our Fighting Forces, Sgt. Rock, Superman, Unknown Soldier TM & © DC Comics/MAD, Melvin of the Apes TM & © E.C. Publications, Inc./Once Upon a Dungeon TM & © the respective estates of Don Edwing and John P. Severin/“Parable” © the respective estates of Jerry DeFuccio & John P. Severin/Smoke Signal © Desert Island Comics/Sgt. York © Dominant/Tarzan TM & © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc./Esquire TM & © Esquire Magazine, Inc./The Comics Journal TM & © Fantagraphics Books, Inc./American Eagle, Black Bull, Lazo Kid, Prize Comics Western TM & © Feature Pubs, Inc./Classics Illustrated TM & © First Classics, Inc./Black Jack Slaughter, Cheyenne Hawk, Frontline Combat, Noel Bews, Ruby Ed Coffey, Two-Fisted Tales TM & © William M. Gaines, Agent, Inc./Flash Gordon TM & © Hearst Holdings, Inc./Apache Kid, Sgt. Barney Baxter, Battlefront, Battleground, Black Rider, Devil-Dog Dugan, Incredible Hulk, Ka-Zar, Matt Slade, Monsters on the Prowl, Nick Fury, Not Brand Echh, Rawhide Kid, Savage Tales, Semper Fi, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, Strange Tales, Sub-Mariner, Two-Gun Kid, Western Gunfighters, Yellow Claw, Zabu TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc./Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder TM & © Mike Mignola. Captain Easy, Wash Tubbs TM & © Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc./Step-Up Books TM & © Random House, Inc./Kull the Conqueror TM & © Robert E. Howard Properties LLC/Cracked, Cracked Monster Party, For Monsters Only, Sylvester P. Smythe TM & © Scripps Media, Inc./Blazing Battle Tales, Thrilling Adventure Stories TM & © Seaboard Periodicals, Inc./Eagle, Sagebrush, Ye Hang Ups TM & © the estate of John P. Severin/ Monsters Attack!, Biografix TM & © Mort Todd/Crazy TV trading cards TM & © Topps Chewing Gum Company, Inc./Terry and the Pirates TM & © Tribune Media Services, Inc./Blazing Combat, Creepy TM & © Warren Publishing, Inc./Sojourn TM & © White Cliffs Publishing Co., Inc.
TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING Raleigh, North Carolina www.twomorrows.com
TABLE of CONTENTS Foreword by Mort Todd..........6 Introduction by Howard Chaykin.........10 Chapter One: The Early Years..........12 Chapter Two: “Hobo News” Boy..........20 Chapter Three: Castle on the Hill..........30 Chapter Four: The Okinawa Kid..........38 Chapter Five: The Fourth Musketeer..........48 American Eagle: Special Section..........56 Chapter Six: Two-Fisted Days..........72 Chapter Seven: And Then… Michelina..........84 Chapter Eight: Atlas Slumped..........92 Chapter Nine: The Cracked Man..........100 Chapter Ten: Drawn to History..........110 Chapter Eleven: The Marvel Age of Severin..........116 Chapter Twelve: His Winning Losers..........122 Chapter Thirteen: Better in Black-&-White..........128 Chapter Fourteen: Kull the Collaboration..........132 Chapter Fifteen: Rocky Mountain Man..........140 Chapter Sixteen: The Twilight Years.........146 Afterword by Chuck Dixon..........152 Testimonials..........154 Notes.........158
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Chapter One
THE EARLY YEARS
I think I must have been born reaching for a pencil and I just never stopped. John Severin to John Benson, Graphic Story Magazine #13, Spring 1971
ohn Powers Severin was born on Dec. 26, 1921, and died from prostate cancer, on Feb. 12, 2012. These are facts. However, these dates could not be more trivial regarding the history of this accomplished man. His life was hardly one limited to dates and settings of events. His life was not simply the sum of such ïLittle “Jack” Severin (John’s nickname among immediate family) and his doting mother, Marguerite. òPrerequisite naked baby portrait. John P. Severin, 1922.
mundane things. Severin possessed an extraordinary talent, one astonishingly sharp and vivid up until his passing at age 90, yet it was sadly under-appreciated by the greater world. Still, the man’s achievements hardly went unnoticed by his peers and discerning aficionados, many who rank Severin as among the very greatest of comic book artists, a storyteller of the highest rank. This book, as much a celebration as biography, will (we ñJohn P. Severin did, indeed, dedicate time to his beloved
hope) reveal that greatness and examine a life made as an exam- pastime of drawing, even at ple imbued with old world qualities—being a gentleman, ded- this tender age. ication to family, and finding value in most everyone around him. Beloved son, husband, father, grandfather, friend, and brother (to his only sibling, the equally-talented younger sister, comic book legend Marie Severin), the man had the makings of greatness whether he ever picked up a pencil or not. Chapter One: The Early Years
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Chapter Two
“HOBO NEWS” BOY
In high school, I had a whole lot of fun doing cartoons for the Hobo News. John Severin to Mark Voger, Asbury Park Press, Jan. 7, 1996
hen John Severin turned 13, the family òYoung John P. Severin standing above the Brooklyn skyline
ïScrapbook page containing various John Severin drawings from 1939, some perhaps produced with the intention to sell to his first professional outlet, the Hobo News. At center might be his first sale, titled “The Newcomer.”
moved from the sticks of verdant Long during his teen years. Island into the bustling New York City borough where his father had been raised. The Severins took up residence in Brooklyn, at the newly-built Harding Court apartth ment building, at 574 77 Street, in Bay Ridge. Their fellow apartment-dwellers were, like the elder John, mostly skilled professionals born of the Scandinavian Peninsula—Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. (The Bay Ridge neighborhood was, in fact, a major Norwegian enclave, the largest such community in the United States, numbering some 30,00o by 1971.) In his teenage years, the younger John consumed a steady diet of adventure material, including the fiction of Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle. “The usual line of stuff,” he said in 1970. “I went on to The Knights of the Round Table. And when you get about so high, you’ve got all the Tarzan books, J. Allen St. John illustrations all through… All they really did was conjure up all sorts of pic-
ñThe Hobo News, a fervently patriotic weekly, was appropriately anti-fascist even before the U.S. entry into WWII.
tures in my head. When the book was illustrated, that was even better. It made the book twice as good because you had something to tie into. And since I drew… I think I must of been Chapter Two: The “Hobo News” Boy
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Chapter Two: The “Hobo News” Boy
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Chapter Four
THE OKINAWA KID
I love the ‘life’ I live—like hell— It just makes living all the more worthwhile. John Severin in a letter to Colin Dawkins, circa 1944
ivilian John Powers Severin, 21 years old and ïPFC Severin of Company B,
1885th Engineers Aviation Bat-
filled with patriotic fervor, traveled to South talion, brandishing an M3 subFerry, on July 4, 1942, at the southern tip of Man- machine gun, commonly called a "grease gun," in a photo
hattan, and signed up for military service at the snapped while the young man served in the Pacific Theater
Army Building, 39 Whitehall Street. From there, he received during World War II. training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, was inducted into the Army
Air Force, and sent to Keesler Air Field, Mississippi. Then he òPFC John Powers Severin, hopped over to Alabama’s Maxwell Air Force Base, and then USAAF Airborne, serial number
12090528. At time of enlistment:
South Dakota’s Ellsworth AFB, where Severin was trained height 72", weight 158 lbs. to be a radio operator and B-17 bomber mechanic. Sometime during his assignment he pursued pilot training, where testing revealed Severin was colorblind, which, while disqualifying him as pilot, proved advantageous in the USAAF camouflage unit at Westover Air Base, near Springfield, Mass. Severin later explained why he called the stint “easygoing”:49 “You just camouflaged something,” he said, “and then everybody stands around saying, ‘Isn’t that grand?’ And we’d have a beer, if somebody could swipe some, and next day we ñIn correspondence to friend Colin Dawkins, Severin included this self-portrait of JPS pondering his V-mail.
go out and we’d dig a silhouette of an airplane and we’d pour oil in the silhouette, and then somebody’d fly over and take photographs and see if it looked like a plane. Or they’d hide a Chapter Four: The Okinawa Kid
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Written by Nevin Fiddler & M.R. Reese (attributed), art by John Severin (pencils) & Will Elder (inks). Originally appeared in Prize Comics Western #85 [Jan.–Feb. 1951]. Restoration and color by Chris Fama. 56
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American Eagle Special Section
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Chapter Six
TWO-FISTED DAYS
The most enjoyment came when Harvey had turned overTwo-FistedTales to me. John Severin to Steven J. Allen, Mirk-Wood Times #2, Mar. 1973
ven before EC Comics and prior to the Charles William Harvey Studio—cartoonist Al Jaffee says his friend had been planning since high school!—Harvey Kurtzman was hoping to recruit his artist buddies into some publication he’d one day oversee. “During a chat with Harvey,” Jaffee shared, “I asked him why he wanted to connect with fellow Music and Art High School grads, which included Will Elder, Charles Stern, John Severin, myself, and others. He told me it was always his lifelong dream to become a publisher and bring in talent he met along
ïSqua Tront #9 illustration
the way. When he arrived at M&A High, he said he took note detail featuring JPS as “scout/ dietician,” likely drawn in the
of certain students whom he would someday hire for his future 1950s. ñSelf-caricature by JPS. òEmblem of William M. publication, whatever that might be.”74 Gaines’ fabled comic book
Aside from his short-lived Humbug in the late ’50s, Kurtz- imprint, EC Comics. man never became a publisher, but he did realize much of that high school dream once a foot was in the door at Entertaining Comics. Upon first arriving in the fall of 1949, when he started ïOuttake from photo shoot for the “EC Artists of the Issue” feature, Frontline Combat #5 [Mar.–Apr. 1952]. From left, John Severin and Will Elder.
receiving assignments for the “New Trend” titles of horror, crime, and science fiction comics, he worked primarily as artist but, hearing that publisher William M. Gaines was looking for new genres to expand the EC line, he spoke up. Chapter Six: Two-Fisted Days
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Chapter Nine
THE CRACKED MAN
When I got into Cracked magazine, boy, that took everything. John Severin to Steve Ringgenberg, Nov. 7, 2002
òFreaky Cracked #24 [April 1962] cover by John Severin. While his work may not have been the favorites of his fans, the artist told Aaron Sultan in 2007, “To tell you the truth, I really enjoyed doing Cracked because of the variety of stuff that was going on, and it was so constant. There’d be two pages, three pages, a cover, a back cover, four pages. All different subject matter.”
y the last half of 1957, Sol Brodsky, who previous- òSylvester P. Smythe, Cracked magazine mascot, rendered
ly worked alongside Stan Lee during lean times as by John Severin. half of Atlas’s “two-man department,” was short of steady work and eager to get busy after the Atlas debacle. He connected with start-up publisher Robert C. Sproul and, with funding from money-man Bernie Brill, they prepared a magazine to grab some of the MAD readership. (Kurtzman’s creation, when it morphed from comic book into black-&-white magazine, was a huge newsstand success story, with peak sales of 2.1 million, by 1974.) “Knowing I could do this comic stuff,” Severin said, “[Sol] asked me to come in on it.”118 Sproul had learned the ropes in the circulation department at Ace Books and he partnered with the prominent science fiction paperback publisher to produce magazines under the Candar imprint, and he found early success with a “men’s sweat” line, starting with Man’s Action, in 1958. Explained one history, “Sproul took well to the market, expanding to five magazines, most of which were published into the ’70s.”119
ïJohn Severin at his drawing table, later 1960s, before moving to Denver (where the artist discarded his toupée for good).
Under Sproul’s Major Publications (a Candar subsidiary), Cracked became the entrepreneur’s most successful title, as it ultimately boasted a circulation of 500,000 by the late Chapter Nine: The Cracked Man
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