Marleen Lowe Remembered

Very sad news reached us recently that Marleen Starksfield Lowe has passed away. She was a hugely talented artist with a unique style who contributed greatly to Accent UK's independent comics breakthrough, particularly in the Dave West penned Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man? and various anthology titles including Robots, Western, Zombies 2 and Owen Michael Johnson's opus, Who On Earth Was Thaddeus Mist?.

Marleen's artwork for Teruo written by Paul Bowles from 2008's Robots anthology

It was her work on Robots - her first ever published comics work if I recall - that convinced Dave that he had found the perfect foil for the Fastest Man strip that he was developing and so it proved with the strip being a big success, enjoying worldwide distribution, selling out, leading to a second printing and an Eagle Award for the best British black & white comic of 2009.   

Thoughtful panel from Fastest Man

 
The comics success tempted Marleen to make her only comic show appearance at an Accent UK table at 2009's BICS (Birmingham International Comic Show), where she was both bemused and pleasantry surprised by the comics reaction and favourable comments received. This was the only time I met and conversed with Marleen who was a very private person, but I recall that she was genuinely happy that the comic had been so well received and enjoyed sharing it's success if not it's spotlight.  

Success breeds success though and through it's global distribution Accent UK were approached for a Brazilian version of the story which with Marleen and Dave's consent resulted in a fine Portugese language edition from Gal Editora.

Marleen continued to contribute to other Accent UK anthologies including a Western themed story written by her brother Stephen and Owen's afore-mentioned Thaddeus Mist book from 2012 and fittingly, Owen has penned a moving tribute of his memories and friendship with her at the Broken Frontier comics site which you can read here. 

Dave was reunited with Marleen for a further addition to his Blessed/Cursed series in 2017's Has Kane Mesmer Lost His Magic Touch?, which in it's story of real-life magic, gave Marleen a chance to again demonstrate her keen eye for dynamic artwork to great success. 

Our condolences go to Marleen's family and those left behind and we are grateful for the talent she shared that will forever remind us of her.

A dynamic panel from Kane Mesmer