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Florence Steinberg (March 17, 1939 – July 23, 2017) was an American publisher of one of the first independent comic books, the underground/alternative comics hybrid Big Apple Comix, in 1975. Additionally, as the secretary for Marvel Comics editor Stan Lee and the fledgling company's receptionist and fan liaison during the 1960s Silver Age of Comic Books, she was a key participant of and witness to Marvel's expansion from a two-person staff to a pop culture conglomerate.
Steinberg appeared in fictionalized form in Marvel Comics, spoke at comic book conventions and was the subject of a magazine profile.
Marvel's only staffers at that time were Lee and Steinberg herself, with the rest of the work handled freelance.Steinberg in Salicrup, Zimmerman, p. 60. De facto production manager Sol Brodsky "would come in and set up an extra little drawing board where he would do the paste-ups and mechanicals for the ads," Steinberg said. She recalled that the "first real Bullpen" — the roomful of artists at drawing boards making corrections, preparing art for printing, and, as envisioned later within Marvel's letter pages and "Bullpen Bulletins", a mythologized clubhouse in which the likes of Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck and others would be found — was created when Marvel moved downtown a few buildings from 655 Madison Avenue to 635 Madison Avenue. "Stan finally had his own office. There was a big space with windows where I was, and Sol Brodsky, now on staff, had his own desk"."Flo Steinberg Interview", p. 10-B She said that at the time, "You were lucky to make $60 a week starting ... and Stan offered me $65, which was a big incentive to sign on!".Steinberg in Salicrup, Zimmerman, p. 65.
In addition to serving as Lee's secretary, Steinberg coordinated with and cajoled artists to turn their work in by deadline, responded to fans' letters, including sending paying members the Merry Marvel Marching Society fan-club kit, and sending artwork to the Comics Code Authority to be examined in order to carry the industry's self-censorship Comics Code seal.Steinberg in Salicrup, Zimmerman, pp. 63, 65, 67. She also had to field uninvited fans who would appear at the office, hoping to meet the comics creators. "People started coming up to the office. And I would have to go out and see what they wanted. And little kids would try to run by me ... and I would have to trip them. ... Everyone thought that it was nice that the kids were coming up, but at the same time ... this was a business, y'know."Steinberg in Salicrup, Zimmerman, p. 61.
Artist Jim Mooney once recalled,
The all-purpose Steinberg — given the sobriquet "Fabulous Flo", in the manner of many other Marvel Comics endearments — said that she
Steinberg became exposed to the underground comix scene after meeting and becoming friends with Trina Robbins, who had come to the Marvel offices to interview Lee for the Los Angeles Free Press underground newspaper. Through her, Steinberg became acquainted with contributors to the New York City underground paper the East Village Other, and met underground cartoonists.
Journalist Robin Green, who succeeded Steinberg at Marvel in 1968, wrote in Rolling Stone:
A "Marvel Bullpen Bulletins" page in Marvel comics cover-dated February 1969 and necessarily written two to three months earlier noted that Steinberg "has a great new job at Rockefeller Center".Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page, "Sensational Scoops to Startle, Stun, and Soothe You!" in Marvel Comics cover-dated February 1969, including The Incredible Hulk vol. 2, #112. Working for the trade group the American Petroleum Institute, she edited pamphlets and technical manuals for 2 1/2 years, leaving when the organization relocated to Washington, D.C.Steinberg in Salicrup, Zimmerman, p. 68. By this time she had become friends with New York City underground comix cartoonists including Trina Robbins, Kim Deitch, Michelle Brand and Roger Brand. After those artists moved to San Francisco, the center of the underground comix scene, Steinberg in the latter half of 1970 moved there as well. She befriended cartoonists including Art Spiegelman and worked for Gary Arlington's San Francisco Comic Book Company before leaving the city after a year. Steinberg moved back to her family in Boston for a short while and then returned to New York City. There, she recalled in 1984, her Marvel-artist friend Herb Trimpe "had a studio in the upper 80s of that he wasn't using so I stayed there and went job hunting." Steinberg found work running Captain Company, the mail-order division of the horror-comics magazine firm Warren Publishing, staying three years.
She spoke at a 1974 New York Comic Art Convention panel on the role of women in comics, alongside Marie Severin, Jean Thomas (sometime-collaborator of then-husband Roy Thomas) and fan representative Irene Vartanoff.
In 1975, Steinberg published Big Apple Comix, a seminal link between underground comix and modern-day independent comics, with contributors including such mainstream talents as Neal Adams, Archie Goodwin, Denny O'Neil, Al Williamson, and Wally Wood. (2025). 9781605490564, TwoMorrows Publishing. ISBN 9781605490564 Critic Ken Jones, in a 1986 retrospective review, suggested that Big Apple Comix and Mark Evanier's High Adventure may have been "the first true alternative comics". Cited in
As of 1984, she was managing editor of the Manhattan-based Arts Magazine.Steinberg in Salicrup, Zimmerman, pp. 73-74. In the 1990s, Steinberg returned to work for Marvel as a proofreader, and continued in that role at least part-time through 2017. "And she was still coming in to proofread recently."
In the alternate universe series Ultimate Fantastic Four #28 (May 2006), writer Mark Millar added a brief tribute to Steinberg. She serves as the secretary to President Ultimate Thor on an Earth populated almost entirely by superheroes. She warns the Human Torch not to burn the rug, to which he replies, "I know, I know. No need to be such a nag, Miss Steinberg".
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