One Book Stand MY LOVE / OUR LOVE STORY "Look of Love!"

On One of the Social Media Sites Where We Post Links to This Blog...

...fellow comics pro Steve Hogan aka Acid Keg Comics posted the original art of this romance comics cover attributed to John Romita Sr, which Romita himself notes "Done in the French Romance style"

I wondered why it would be referred to that way, so I dug up the story the cover promotes...

The illustrator, Enrique Montserratt, was actually a Spanish artist whose work appeared, thanks to multi-lingual syndication services, in most European countries...including France and England!
No doubt Romita (or someone else at Marvel) saw his French or British work and offered him an assignment of a Stan Lee script.
Sadly, whether it was due to distance, language difficulties, time constraints, or who-knows-what, this tale from Marvel's My Love #12 (1971) was Montserratt's only work for Marvel (or any American publisher!)

Getting back to the cover, here's the printed version...

Note the second circular caption on the right ("I Need Him--") and the surprinted text "Don't Dare Miss--" have apparently fallen-off the original art! 

When the tale and cover were reprinted a couple of years later in Marvel's Our Love Story #26 (1973), they were reprinted without the usual "updating" of hair and fashions!
In fact, the interior art wasn't even re-colored...which was even rarer!

Next Week:

We're Not Sure Yet Exactly Which Story We'll Present!

But, We Guarantee...

You'll Cry Your Eyes Out if You Miss It!

And now a word from out sponsor..

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Marvel Romance: the Trade Paperback!

Marvel's picked some of the best love comics from the 60s and 70s!

"It Happened at Woodstock," "My Heart Broke in Hollywood," "Love on the Rebound!"

Collects Love Romance #89 and #101-104; My Love #2, #14, #16 and #18-20; Teen-Age Romance #77 and #84, Our Love Story #5; and Patsy Walker #119.

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Romance on the Range LOVE DIARY "Big City Girl"

It's Culture Shock ...and More...When a Woman Raised in the Frenetic Urban Jungle...

...gets literally thrown, against her will, into the pastoral countryside!

Written by Dorothy Woolfolk and illustratd by Mort Leav, this never-reprinted story from Orbit's Love Diary #12 (1951) presented the point of view that dwellers of the crowded canyons of concrete were somehow "less" than the "salt of the earth" types who lived out among farm animals and miles of vegetation!

Next Week:

We don't know yet what we'll present, but we can guarantee...

You'll Cry Your Eyes Out if You Miss It!

And now a word from our sponsor...

Support True Love Comics Tales

Visit Amazon and Order...

Agonizing Love

The Golden Age of Romance Comics

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Tales Twice Told MARVEL ROMANCE REDUX "President Stripper" / MY LOVE "I Do My Thing...No Matter Who It Hurts!"

We Dug Far and Wide to Find an Appropriate Romance Comic Story for the 4th of July...

...and what we came up with was...this!

Written (technically re-written) by Jeff Parker, this story appeared in Marvel Romance Redux: But I Thought He Loved Me (2006), which utilized art by penciler John Buscema and inker John Romita Sr for a cover-featured story that originally appeared in Marvel's My Love #2 (1969)...

Note that while the art is clearly Buscema and Romita Sr, it's unknown who wrote the tale!

Most believe it was original Editor Stan Lee.

Happy 4th of July
&
250th Anniversary of America

Tales THRICE Told: TEEN-AGE ROMANCE / OUR LOVE STORY "Summer Must End!" & MARVEL ROMANCE REDUX "I Was a Beach Blanket Barbarian!"

For Some People, the End of Summer Can't Come Fast Enough...

Cover art by Jack Kirby and George Klein

...but this torrid tale by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Vince Colletta just screamed to be told as soon as possible (and not for the reason you think)!

PSST!

Wanna know a secret?

This story, which we're presenting from Atlas' Teen-Age Romance #84 (1961) later appeared in Marvel's Our Love Story #9 (1971) in an extremely-modified form!

The art in Our Love Story was retouched by art director John Romita Sr to "update" the hairstyles and some of the fashions, including the swimsuits...

"Why did they do that?" you may ask...

With sales falling on most non-superhero genres in the late 1960s (including Western and war as well as romance), this "updated reprinting" became a common practice on romance comics until the genre all-but died out in the late 1970s.

Publishers would do a new 6-12 page lead story and use retouched reprints to fill out the book.

Editors felt that:

a) the plots were relatively timeless.

b) updating the art was cheaper than totally-redrawing the story. 

c) the artists were better-utilized doing stuff that sold better (like superheroes).

d) the audience for romance comics, unlike superhero comics, totally-changed every 5-6 years anyway, and wouldn't notice the "old" plots.
But this wasn't the last time the story would be modified.
As you'll see, Marvel could modify more than just the art!
Five years after DC did the snarky Truer than True Romance trade paperback...

..which took old romance comics and rewrote them,.Marvel did a mini-series based on the same concept...except it was written entirely by males!

(The DC book was rewritten by a female writer.)

Here's what they did with "Summer Must End"...an interesting combination of both the Jack Kirby/Vince Colletta original and the John Romita Sr-modified/updated version..

Re-written by John Lustig, who had experience doing similar re-writes of Charlton's First Kiss romance comic series as Last Kiss.
You can check that out HERE!

Next Week...

We Don't Yet Know What We'll Present, But We DO Know...

You'll Cry Your Eyes Out If You Miss It!

Support True Love Comics Tales

Visit Amazon and Buy..

Marvel Romance Redux
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