Marc Swayze, 1913-2012

Marc Swayze, potentially until the time of his passing the oldest-surviving noteworthy Golden Age Of Comic Books comics artist and best known for being the first artist at Fawcett to work with the Mary Marvel character, died on October 14 in Monroe, Louisiana. He was 99 years old.

Marcus Desha Swayze was born in Monroe, Louisiana and made his way to New York City for a career in art after a brief period playing semi-pro baseball. Swayze sent sketches to the Fawcett offices and was asked to come in for an interview, which may have been a formality based on the strength of his submission. He later said he was working for the publisher at the time of America's entry into World War 2, although is work wasn't published until mid-1942. He began with work on Captain Marvel Adventures and Whiz Comics, but later settled in at Wow. His straight-forward, unadorned style was perfectly suited to the adventures of the Marvel Family; Swayze was also an effective cover artist and wrote several stories.

Swayze was the artist on the initial appearances of Mary Marvel, perhaps the best distaff-version of a character ever in large part because of her appealing design. He worked with Otto Binder on those stories.

The artists served in the US Army during World War 2. After leaving the service, Swayze decided to return to Louisiana and rare for the time continued his work with the New York comics publisher. This included work for Sweethearts and Life Story in the publisher's romance comics line. When Fawcett folded in the early 1950s, Swayze switched for a time to Charlton before leaving comics altogether.

A profile in the Monroe newspaper later in life mentioned that Swayze was one of those comic book artists that was constantly pursuing a syndicated strip deal, creating dozens of characters along the way. He was from 1943 to 1946 the artist on Flyin' Jenny; creator Russell Keaton was Swayze's mentor. He would later take up oil painting.

Swayze contributed the "We Didn't Know It Was The Golden Age" column to Alter Ego from 1996 until his passing.
 
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