Lily Renée

Lily Renée Phillips (born Lily Willheim, May 12, 1921, in Vienna, Austria; died August 24, 2022) was a pioneering comic-book artist during the Golden Age, one of the first women to break into the industry. After fleeing Nazi-occupied Vienna as a teenager, she spent time in England before settling in New York City. There, she found work at Fiction House, where she penciled and inked features including "Jane Martin," "The Werewolf Hunter," "The Lost World," and "Señorita Rio." Her style was clean and dynamic, with a strong sense of storytelling that suited the adventure and fantasy genres. She often collaborated with writer/editor Ruth Roche. Renée is best known for co-creating the Latin American aviatrix Señorita Rio, a rare early female lead in comics. She also contributed to *Fight Comics*, *Planet Comics*, and *Rangers Comics*, and later worked on *Abbott and Costello Comics*. After leaving comics in the 1950s, she pursued a career in textile design. Her legacy as a trailblazer for women in comics grew in later decades, and she received an Inkpot Award in 2020. Her work remains collected in archival editions such as *PS Artbooks Presents: Fight Comics Featuring Señorita Rio*.