Mary Skrenes is a

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

writer and

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

. She may be best known as co-creator (with

Steve Gerber Stephen Ross Gerber (; September 20, 1947 – February 10, 2008) was an American comic book writer and creator of the satiric Marvel Comics character Howard the Duck. Other works include ''Man-Thing'', ''Omega the Unknown,'' ''Marvel Spotlight:' ...

) of

Omega the Unknown Omega the Unknown is an American comic book published by Marvel Comics from 1976 to 1977, featuring the eponymous fictional character. The series, written by Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes and illustrated by Jim Mooney, ran for 10 issues before ...

for

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publishing, publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Co ...

, although she worked on other Marvel characters such as the

Defenders Defender(s) or The Defender(s) may refer to: *Defense (military) *Defense (sports) **Defender (association football) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Defender'' (1989 film), a Canadian documentary * ''The Defender'' (1994 f ...

and

Guardians of the Galaxy The Guardians of the Galaxy is a fictional superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. It may more specifically refer to: Comic book teams * Guardians of the Galaxy (1969 team), the original 31st-century team fr ...

. She was the creator of and inspiration for

Beverly Switzler Beverly Switzler is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. She is mostly a companion and sometimes girlfriend to Howard the Duck. Beverly Switzler was portrayed by Lea Thompson in the 1986 film '' Ho ...

, the companion of

Howard the Duck Howard the Duck is a fictional Character (arts), character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerik. Howard the Duck first appeared in ''Adventure into F ...

. For ''Omega the Unknown'', Skrenes created the supporting characters Amber Grant and Dian Wilkins. She published a number of horror stories for DC under the name Virgil North, and began a long collaboration with

Steve Skeates Steve Skeates (; born 1943) is an American comic book creator known for his work on such titles as ''Aquaman'', ''Hawk and Dove'', ''T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents'', and ''Plop!'' He has also written under the pseudonyms Chester P. Hazel and Warren Savin. ...

. According to Skeates, a number of his mystery stories were actually co-written with Skrenes, but she insisted on submitting them under Skeates's name alone because of bad blood between her and editor

Joe Orlando Joseph Orlando (April 4, 1927 – December 23, 1998) was an Italian American illustrator, writer, editor and cartoonist during a lengthy career spanning six decades. He was the associate publisher of '' Mad'' and the vice president of DC Comics, ...

. Skrenes got her first professional work for DC Comics in the early 1970s, writing horror and

romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...

stories under the tutelage of editor

Dick Giordano Richard Joseph Giordano (; July 20, 1932 – March 27, 2010) was an American comics artist and editor whose career included introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes and serving as executive editor of DC Comics. Early li ...

. Skrenes wrote several episodes of '' Jem'', ''

GI Joe ''G.I. Joe'' is an American media franchise and a line of action figures owned and produced by the toy company Hasbro. The initial product offering represented four of the branches of the U.S. armed forces with the Action Soldier ( U.S. Army), Ac ...

'' and ''

Transformers ''Transformers'' is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the Autobots and the Decepticons, two alien robot factions at war that can transform into other forms, suc ...

'' in the 1980s. In 2004 she re-united with Gerber to write the short-lived comic ''

Hard Time Hard may refer to: * Hardness, resistance of physical materials to deformation or fracture * Hard water, water with high mineral content Arts and entertainment * ''Hard'' (TV series), a French TV series * Hard (band), a Hungarian hard rock supe ...

''. For contractual reasons, she was credited only on ''Season Two''; however, the first issue stated that she had been involved with the series from the beginning.

Personal life

Collaborator Steve Gerber once described Skrenes in his blog as "such a private person that when she gets back to town she’ll probably castigate me for having just revealed that she’s such a private person."Gerber, Steve. "Night Terrors". ''Stevegerblog'' August 13th, 2005 at 5:20 PM
/ref> Her last name is pronounced ''skree-nes''.

Bibliography

Comic books

DC Comics

The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love ''Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion'' was a horror-suspense-romance anthology comic book series published by DC Comics from 1971 to 1974, a companion to '' Secrets of Sinister House''. Both series were originally inspired by the successful ABC soap ...

#2 (1971) * House of Secrets #92,120 (1971,1974) *

House of Mystery ''The House of Mystery'' is the name of several horror, fantasy, and mystery Comics anthologies published by DC Comics. It had a companion series, ''The House of Secrets''. It is also the name of the titular setting of the series. First serie ...

vol.1 #204 (1972) *

Plop! ''Plop!'', "The New Magazine of Weird Humor!", was a comic book Comics anthology, anthology series published by DC Comics in the mid-1970s. It falls into the Horror fiction, horror / humor genre. It lasted 24 issues and the series ran from Sept./Oc ...

#4,9,16 (1974-1975) *

Detective Comics ''Detective Comics'' is an American comic book series published by Detective Comics, later shortened to DC Comics. The first volume, published from 1937 to 2011 (and later continued in 2016), is best known for introducing the superhero Batman i ...

#449 (1975) * The Unexpected #201 (1980) *

vol.1 #1-12 (2004-2005),vol.2 #1-7 (2005-2006)

Marvel

The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu ''The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu'' was an American black-and-white martial arts comics magazine published by Magazine Management, a corporate sibling of Marvel Comics. A total of 33 issues were published from 1974 to 1977, plus one special edition. A ...

#5,13 (1974-1975) * The Defenders vol.1 #36 (1976) *

#1-6,9-10 (1976-1977) *

Annual 1 (1977), #28 (1978)

Star*Reach

Star Reach ''Star Reach'' (also spelled ''Star*Reach'') was an American science fiction and fantasy comics anthology published from 1974 to 1979 by Mike Friedrich. Publication history One of the first American mainstream independent comic books, ''Star*R ...

#4-5 (1976) *Quack #2 (1977)

Television credits

* '' G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero'' (1985-1986) * '' The Transformers'' (1986) * '' Jem'' (1986-1987)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Skrenes, Mary American comics writers American screenwriters Living people Year of birth missing (living people)