Sometimes comics pros are their own harshest critics...
...as this tale from EC's Modern Love #8 (1950) demonstrates!
Notes: "T. Tot" is a fictional character whose name is based on "Tiny Tot Comics, Inc", one of the shell company name used by EC for several of its' titles including Modern Love).
The man with glasses is based on EC Comics publisher/story co-writer Bill Gaines.
The other sycophant is based on editor/co-writer/illustrator Al Feldstein
Notes: "Wolf Comics" is based on
Fox Comics, who actually put romance titles out
before EC (along with crime comics like the titles on the wall)...
Notes: Comics in those days were only 10 cents each, so the "two dollars and thirty cents for twenty-three comics"
is accurate!
And, at that point, 20% of
all comics were romance titles including hybrids like
Golden West Love,
Wartime Romances and
Love Mystery!
The publisher in Panel 2,
"Love" Greasin, is based on rival publisher
Lev Gleason, who, like
EC, published crime and romance comics.
Notes: "Jack Lyman" (the tall one) is
Joe Simon and
"Joe Curry" (guy with the cigar) is
Jack Kirby, the actual creators of the romance comics genre.
Guess few people wrote in since "The Love Story to End All Love Stories" was the final story in the final issue of Modern Love.
EC cancelled all it's titles except horror, crime, and sci-fi, but adding two humor titles, MAD and PANIC in 1952.
When the "Seduction of the Innocent" witch hunt drove many comics publishers out of business in the mid 1950s, EC cancelled everything but MAD (which was rebooted as a b/w magazine and continues to this day) and launched a new line of "picto-fiction" adult-oriented b/w magazines including the romance-themed Confessions Illustrated, which lasted only two issues.
Next week:
We haven't decided yet what it'll be, but we can guarantee that...
You'll Cry Your Eyes Out if You Miss It!
(Oh, you've heard that, eh?)
And now a word from out sponsor...
