CRAFTING WALL STONES PT. 2

Assuming that one validates my equation between artistic creativity and Mary Wollstonecraft's concept of "virtue" as it is determined by the sexual division of labor-- what then?

Well, if everyone viewed such discrepancies in virtue as the result of a long-standing biological process, we wouldn't get things like THE OBITUARY MARIE SEVERIN SHOULD HAVE RECEIVED, in which we learn, according to author Alex Dueben, that it represents "the career she could have had, had she been born a man."

Not since the days of "Spiderbuttgate" have I seen such a display of blithering ressentiment, in which the shortcomings of any person who fits an intersectional profile can be excused by references to "endemic sexism."

Now, I wrote my own obit for Marie Severin, combined with one for Gary Friedrich, who coincidentally passed on the same day. Mine was not a general assessment of either comics pro, aside from crediting them both with "better-than-average formula entertainment," which assessment I would apply to both pros separately.

What we have here is sheer revisionism, an attempt to build Marie Severin up to a major figure in comic books. In the comments-section, Heidi McDonald avers:

Looking at the work here, Severin should always be mentioned in the same breath as Wood and Kurtzman.

To say the least, I do not agree. Severin simply was not that imaginative. Forget comparisons to Wood and Kurtzman; Severin was not even as accomplished as a contemporaneous "Marvel Bullpen" artist like Bill Everett. Everett is of course most famed as the creator of the Sub-Mariner, but even if one compared Everett's accomplishments in the Silver and Bronze Ages to those of Severin in the same period, there's nothing on Severin's resume that even rates with Everett's co-creation of Daredevil. Indeed, Everett even created one of Marvel's most prominent sixties villainesses, Umar the Unrelenting--

--whom Severin also drew a few issues later.

Now, if one agrees with my proposition that, based only on their Silver-and-Bronze Age contributions Everett was superior to Severin, is there a biological explanation for this opinion? Certainly I would not advocate Camille Paglia's explanation, as discussed in Part 1, to the effect that Everett's abilities in male projection-- and being able to write his own name in the snow-- had anything to do with it.

But Everett may have been a better creator simply because, being a man, he was more invested in excelling in a largely male arena, while Severin was not so invested.

Granted, one can certainly find male practitioners who weren't even as good at formulaic entertainment as was Severin. But on the whole, there were simply more good male creators than there were female ones, and no revisionism can change that.

I assert, further, that there are a fair number of female comics-pros who not only show exceptional creativity, but who arguably can excel their male contemporaries. An example would be Rumiko Takahashi, one of the foremost manga-artists, who IMO easily outpaced her former manga-teacher, the recently departed Kazuo Koike. I admire Koike's writing on such properties as LONE WOLF AND CUB and LADY SNOWBLOOD. But even allowing for the manga-works I have not read, I would say that Takahashi displays a far greater profusion of disparate characters and concepts. And she did so, even though it seems likely that Japan had its own tradition of "endemic sexism."