As Irene and I have done for quite a few years, we used her attendance at the New Jersey Romance Writers annual conference to swoop down on Marie Severin, the nicest lady in comics, with whom we worked at Marvel during the ’70s.

She was back then, and continues to be now, a hoot.

We swung by Thursday and took her out for Italian, plying her with wine and swapping stories of the old days. As usual, we filled her in on news of all our old friends (and all our old non-friends, too).

She asked after Stan Lee, and was tickled to hear he now had a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. We tried to figure out who the oldest surviving comics creator was, and thought that it had to be Joe Simon, who just turned 98. (You’ll tell me if I’m wrong, right?) We got her talking about the old EC days, which I don’t think we’d ever done before, and she told us what a good boss Bill Gaines had been to her.

But in addition to the comics gossip—unavoidable when we get together—we of course caught up on life in general, with much laughter. (There’s GOT to be laughter when you’re around Mirthful Marie.)

And here’s the lady herself, looking 82 years young.

We’ll continue talking by phone often, but I hope we won’t have to wait until next November to see her again in the flesh.

We love you, Marie!