Maddie Blaustein, 1960-2008

Maddie Blaustein, known to a generation as the voice of Pokémon’s nemesis Meowth, passed away at age 48.  Aaron McQuade said she died in her sleep after a brief, undisclosed illness.

Born Adam Blaustein, she broke into the comics field as Jim Owsley’s editorial assistant at Marvel Comics in the 1980s before leaving to go freelance. Blaustein went on to write several issues of Milestone’s Static before joining DC Comics as a production artist/photographer.

Blaustein, a transgender individual, evolved into Madeleine while building up an impressive voice over resume for English-language anime adaptations including Solomon Moto on Yu-Gi-Oh, commercials and radio. She was also a very active participant at Second Life.

After leaving DC Comics in 2006, Blaustein joined Weekly World News as its visual artist, creating the elaborate photos to accompany its stories.  We worked alongside one another at the company and she loved the challenge the stories posed her.  After the paper folded in August 2007, Blaustein freelanced until her death.

Aaron McQuade, who profiled Maddie for The Advocate, wrote on his blog, “Maddie once told me the story of how she was inspired to fully transition from male to female (and to come out to her co-workers as transgender) by an episode of Pokémon. In the episode ‘Go West, Young Meowth’ her character travels to Hollywood to make it big. There, Meowth falls in love with another Meowth, who spurns his advances. He decides to learn how to speak and to stand upright in order to impress her – but she rejects him for being a “freak.” Meowth was a human trapped in a Pokémon’s body.”