Tales Twice-Told TENDER LOVE STORIES & YOUNG ROMANCE "Fashion Plate"

When is a contemporary love story not  a contemporary love story?

When it was "contemporary" a decade earlier!

You'd think a tale heavily-oriented about current fashion would have been written and drawn...well...currently!

But this story, published in Skywald's Tender Love Stories #4 (1971), wasn't scripted and illustrated in 1971!

It was created almost a decade earlier...in 1963!

Published in Prize's Young Romance #124 (1963), the original version illustrated by Bob Powell's art studio presents the male ingenue first as a leather-clad biker, then as a preppie, and finally as an average Joe.

The reworked version, re-inked by Bill Everett, presents the guy first as a leisure-suited layabout, then a double-breasted suit-clad dandy, and finally, again, as an average Joe.

You'll also note in both cases, Bob starts out with extreme hairstyles, then gets trimmed as the tale goes on!

Of course, looking back on these tales decades later, both stories seem like "period pieces"!

And, yes, we did wear clothes like you see here in both those time periods!

They were considered "cutting edge" then.
"Why did the publisher and editor take an old story and rework it?" 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 8-20 page lead story and use retouched reprints to fill out the book.
(Some of the books were 100-page "Super Spectaculars"!)

Editors felt that:

a) the plots were relatively timeless.

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

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

d) the audience for romance comics, unlike superhero comics, changed every 5-6 years anyway, and newer readers wouldn't notice the old plots!

Next Week...

We Don't Know What We're Presenting...Yet!

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

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Marvel Romance
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Love IS a BattleField DARLING LOVE "I Want My Soldier Boy"

Today's story is About War...

...in several different ways!
Yet this ad, which utilized the tale's splash page, doesn't give away any of them!
Let's read on...

We've presented stories about Korean and German war brides who faced difficulties adjusting to their new lives in America after marrying servicemen, but never a case involving the husband's parents being prejudiced against the new wife!
It's not as if she's a "foreigner/alien" (non-English-speaking ethnic as many war brides were), but British, the nationality most white Americans at that point were descended from!
In fact WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) were the dominant ethnicity in business and politics from America's founding until the 1960s!

Notes:

Darling Love and it's sister, Darling Romance each ran a full-page ad promoting a story in the other's book!
AFAIK, publisher Darling Magazines was the only company to do this.
We took the ad from Darling Romance #5 (which used the tale's splash) and combined it with the rest of the story from Darling Love #5 (1950).
BTW, Darling Magazines was an imprint of MLJ Publishing, aka Archie Comics, which had been doing genre-specific imprints since the 1940s.
In the 1960s, they imitated Marvel with a Mighty Comics line featuring their various superhero character revivals, and in the 70s-80s, they had Red Circle, which published horror and super-hero material!

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!

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Agonizing Love

The Golden Age of Romance Comics
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Love and the Law POLICE TRAP "Masher!"

Riding the NYC subway can  be an adventure...

...like this atypical tale of lechery, love, and the law!

This tale of female empowerment from 1954 is from the first issue of Mainline's short-lived 1950s anthology Police Trap, illustrated (and probably written) by Bill Draut, who also did a lot of romance comics work in the 1950s-1970s, primarily for Harvey, Toby, and DC.
He continued producing material until the mid-1980s, ending up (like many other comic artists) working on animated tv series, where he was one of the primary designers for the original GI Joe cartoon.
And, please remember to be observant and careful when you ride public transportation!

Business Before Love? YOUNG MARRIAGE "Everything But Love"

It is Said "All's Fair in Love and War"!

It is also said "Business is War"!

So, a logical extrapolation of the two is "All is Fair in Business and Love"!

To answer the obvious question, there was never a sequel to this never-reprinted story of Cupid and cupidity from Fawcett's Young Marriage #1 (1950), created by artist Bob Powell and an unknown scripter...who could have been Powell himself or editor Roy Ald!

Pre-Comics Code tales tended to be more "adult" in their subject matter than the later books which had less-sophisticated stories!
And a surprising number have rather depressing endings...

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...

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Agonizing Love

The Golden Age of Romance Comics

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Love IS Lunacy A MOON, A GIRL...ROMANCE "I Was Jilted and Had No Desire to Live!"

Sometimes, you just want a three-hankie tear-jerker...

...to cleanse your soul...and here it is!

I know, I know.

This being EC Comics, you half-expected her to take the poison, become zombified, and eat Gregg when he came to the door.

And, the story from EC's A Moon, a Girl...Romance #9 (1949) is so cliched that it might have inspired writer/illustrator Al Feldstein to think about doing exactly that when, a year later, EC began doing its' now-classic horror comics titles!
BTW, if the book's title seems a little...weird, it's due to Post Office regulations!
Really!
Back in the days of getting subscription magazines by mail, a publisher had to purchase a separate license for each one to get the low "second class" magazine mailing rate!
But that license would apply only to one periodical at a time!
If you launched a differently-titled periodical, you had to buy a separate license for that book!
Comic publishers were notoriously-stingy, so if a book wasn't selling, they'd reformat it, but try to keep the title as similar as possible to avoid buying a new mailing license!
This series started out as Moon Girl and the Prince, about a super-heroine and her consort.
With #2, it became just Moon Girl, as the Prince was downplayed in the stories.
But when violent 'true crime' stories were introdued as of #7, the series was retitled Moon Girl Fights Crime.

When that didn't boost sales, Moon Girl was dropped entirely, and, in #9, the book became a romance comic called A Moon, A Girl...Romance!
But sales still didn't improve, so it was revamped as of #13 into s sci-fi/fantasy book called Weird Fantasy, atnad after four issues the PO said "ENOUGH!" and forced EC to finally pay for a new second class mailing license!

Next Week:

We Don't Yet Know What We'll Present!

But We Guarantee That...

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

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A Moon, a Girl...Romance / Saddle Romance

The Two Complete Series in One Volume
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