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Senorita Rio

Lily Renée Wilheim Peters Phillips, (born Lily Renée Wilheim, c. 1925, Vienna, Austria), often credited as L. Renée, Lily Renée, or Reney, is an Austrian-American artist, writer and playwright. She escaped from Nazi-occupied Vienna to England and later New York. To survive, she found jobs like a servant and other low-waged work. Later she worked as a penciller at Fiction House on such titles as The Werewolf Hunter, Jane Martin and Senorita Rio. Her works of art showed girls' spirit and bravery in the mainstream of comics which was dominated by males at that time. Her work can seldom been found because of the times when she was in. The women non-profit organization in comics she participated in encouraged and inspired women in this field. As she became older, her drawing turned to the closet and finally no longer created works of art but maintained her modesty all the time.

Early life

Wilheim was raised by wealthy Jewish parents in Vienna in the 1930s. Her father worked as a manager at the Holland America line, a transatlantic steamship company. As a child, she often visited museum and danced ballet as a hobby. Such exposure to art actually influenced her works in the future.

In 1938, at age fourteen, Wilheim was boarded onto the Kindertransport, leaving her parents behind in Nazi-occupied Austria. Her life had to be totally changed because of the history conflicts in thle country. On March 12,Hitler's Nazi army invaded Austria. The Nazis hated the Jewish people very much at that time. Lily's families were all Jewish so they managed to escape. She arrived in Leeds, England, and lived there for two years waiting for her parents' escape. She worked as a servant and nanny to the children of a German general. She couldn't be allowed to attend the school and received her gracious art education. She reportedly drew only a single illustration during this time, one of the biblical character Eve lying in a bed of thorns. She said she also didn't know why she drew that and where it came from in her interview. It depicted a helpless girl who was willing to escape from the thorny world but was not able to do it.

Wilhelm was sixteen, she received a letter from her parents, who had emigrated to America. But the letter was so late that her ship's information was revealed and she was assigned to be a spy. It was not at all surprising to be regarded as a spy because she carried an expensive Leica camera on her neck as a young refugee. To survive, she chose to walk in the dark midnight and strived to seek for her ship. While attempting to escape, Wilhelm was arrested because someone reported her track and she was subsequently released due to a mysterious stranger's negotiation . After moving to New York, she ultimately gathered with her family as well as other refugees. She tried various kinds of jobs, such as decorating wooden boxes, a model, catalog' s illustration. She applied to a position at Fiction House, a publishing company looking to replace its male artists who had been drafted into the war. This job was found accidentally on account of her mother 's attention to a piece of advertisement in comics.She was hired alongside other female comic illustrators and writers, including Nina Albright and Fran Hopper.

Career

While working at Fiction House, Wilheim experienced frequent sexual harassment from her male colleagues. Her first job there was erasing the errors as the assistant for male illustrators. After several years of working in editing and pencilling, Wilhelm was promoted to styling female Fiction House characters, including Jane Martin, a female pilot character working in the all-male aviation industry. This character was her first big chance in Fiction House. She finished it successfully and showed her talent for creative work in comics. Then she was given a full strip. She wrote and illustrated The Werewolf Hunter and Senorita Rio. Her early life experiences actually impacted her work and art education of Vienna museum and German fairy tales when in the childhood also brought about inspiration for her.

In 1947 she married artist Eric Peters, another Viennese refugee. He had been a political cartoonist, and after drawing a caricature of Joseph Goebbels, the Gestapo showed up at his house to arrest him. He was not apprehended, and was able to escape. In 1948, after Fiction House moved out of New York, Wilhelm and Peters began working at St. John Publications. They worked on Abbott & Costello comics together, and Wilhelm drew additional romance stories.

Later life

Wilhelm retired from Fiction House in 1949 and didn't give up her career even if after marriage and having two children. In 2007, she attended Comic-Con International in San Diego, and Friends of Lulu , an organization group for women who love comics and are brave to create them, nominated her to its Hall of Fame. As of 2010, Wilhelm lived in New York City on Madison Avenue for 40 years. She no longer draws but attend a German literature class at a local college to continue learning new things in her life.

In 2011, Lerner Publishing Group's Graphic Universe line released a graphic biography of Phillips for young readers entitled Lily Renée: Escape Artist, scripted by Trina Robbins with art by Anne Timmons.

Contributions

Penciller

• Abbott and Costello [1948–1949]
• Cinderella Love (1954) #28
  • "I Was A Campus Cutup"
• Diary Secrets (1952) #10, 19, 30
  • "Was I Too Young for Love?"
  • "We Fought for Our Love"
  • "Remodeled for Romance"
• Fight Comics (1940) #34–44, 47–51
  • Senorita Rio [1944–1948]
• Jumbo Comics (1938) #154, 156, 160
• Kaänga Comics (1949) #9
  • "Tabu" story
• Kitty (1948) #1
• Pictorial Romances (1950) #15
  • "For Nurses Only"
• Planet Comics (1940) #28–49, 68, 70
  • Lost World [1944–1947]
  • Mysta of the Moon [1945]
  • Norge Benson [1944]
• Rangers of Freedom/Ranger Comics (1941) #14–40
  • The Werewolf Hunter [1943–1948]
• Teen-Age Diary Secrets (1949)
  • "Dishonest Kisses Were My Downfall"
• Teen-Age Romances (1949) #1–2, 4
  • "Was I Too Young for Love?" (reprint)
  • "We Couldn't Be Kept Apart"
  • "They Called Me a Love Thief"
  • "I'll Not Date in August"
• Toyland Comics (1947) #2–3
  • Fifi on the Farm [1947]
• Wings Comics (1940) #31–48
  • Jane Martin [1943]

Reprints or Illustrators

• America's Greatest Comics (2002) #14
  • "Senorita Rio" story from Fight Comics #50
• Good Girl Art Quarterly (1990) #5
  • "Senorita Rio" story from Fight Comics #35
• Rio Rita (1994) one-shot
  • stories from Fight Comics (1940) #43, 47
• Romance Without Tears TPB (2003)
  • "Was I Too Young for Love?"
  • "We Couldn't Be Kept Apart"

External links

• "Lilly Peters", Jerry Bails, Who's Who in American Comics, 1929–1999
• Grand Comics Database
• "Lily Renée Interview". TCJ.com. November 29, 2006. Archived from the original on February 28, 2007.