Showing posts with label 1940s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1940s. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Amorous Education VARSITY "Follow That Girl!"

We Close Out Amorous Education  for 2026 with...Harvey Kurtzman???
Before landing at EC Comics, Harvey was freelancing everywhere, including an ongoing gig at this college-themed magazine where his two-pager about campus mating rituals appeared in 1949!
Next Week
We Prove Love Can be Scary  in Our Annual Halloween HeartBreak  Blogathon!
You'll Cry your Eyes Out If You Miss It!

Wednesday, September 16, 2026

Amorous Education MY DATE COMICS "Unusual Dates as told to Jean Anne Marten: Story of Fran Pickett"

Though It Was, Technically, a Teen Humor Comic...

...Hillman's My Date was sort of a lead-in to the first serious romance comics Young Romance and Young Love!
Conceived and produced as a competitor to the escapades of Archie and the hormonally-driven Riverdale crowd, My Date featured a lot of work by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, though they were still assembling their Simon & Kirby Studio at that point.
Unlike Young Romance and Young Love, which the S&K Studio "packaged" (editing/scripting/art/pre-press production) for Prize Comics, and began a couple of months after My Date hit the stands, their work on My Date was edited by one of Hillman Comics' in-house staff, Ed Cronin.
But, it's believed that they felt comics were ready for a more serious book about romance, similar to the numerous pulp and slick-stock prose magazines of the era popular with teen-age and young adult women, resulting in Young Romance, which was also young adult-oriented!
This particular story, part of the anthology feature My Date, supposedly-about readers' letters adapted into graphic form, which ran through all four issues of the series, was illustrated by Dan Barry, a journeyman who later freelanced for a lot of different publishers before moving over to steady work on syndicated newspaper strips.
The writer is, sadly, unknown.

Next Week:
We'll Present Another Amorous Education Adventure!
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 Buy...

Wednesday, September 2, 2026

It's the Season for Lovin' ADVENTURES IN ROMANCE "September Squall"

Now that it's September...

...let's tell a seasonally-appropriate, never-reprinted, cover-featured story that really fits the concept of a "beach read'!

The painted cover art (by the story's artist, Warren King) was based on the final panel.
While other comics publishers used painted covers on their romance comics, most of those were re-used pulp or paperback paintings which were unrelated to the interior stories!
You've likely noted a couple of two-page spreads at the beginning of the story and at the conclusion.
St John's Adventures in Romance #1 (1949), experimented with doing double-page spreads in each story to establish a distinctive "look".
Sadly, the series only lasted two issues.  ;-(
Artist Warren King spent several years in comic books doing everything from superheroes to horror to romance, before moving into newspaper cartooning, becoming the in-house editorial cartoonist at the NY Daily News and winning the National Cartoonists Society Best Editorial Cartoonist Award in 1968.
He passed away in 1978.

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..
Support True Love Comics Tales
Visit Amazon and Buy...
Romance Without Tears
featuring comics stories written by Dana Dutch! 
Paid Link

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

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!
And Now a Word From Our Sponsor...
Support True Love Comics Tales

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

Valentine's Week Special YOUNG LOVE "Be My Valentine"

It's Almost Valentine's Day...
...and this never-reprinted tale from Prize's Young Love V4N1-#31 (1952), written and illustrated by the team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, who pioneered the romance comics genre, is all about a Valentine's Day card and it's effect on both sender and receiver!
While Young Love was the second romance comic published (Simon & Kirby's earlier comic, Young Romance in 1947 was the first), it was the last ongoing romance comic book published by a major publisher, ending it's run in 1977!
(Though Prize's comic book line had gone out of business in 1963, DC bought out the publisher's inventory, including unused material, and kept both Young Love & Young Romance going until the '70s!)
BTW, you may have noticed the handsome guy in the cover photo looked sort of familiar!
He's Robert Redford, and the photo was taken during his "photographer's male model" period in the early 1950s!

Next Week: We Return to the Swinging '60s for Another Torrid Tale of Mod Love !
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 Buy...
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Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Love in the Office YOUNG ROMANCE "I Love You, Frank Gerard"

 You think "mansplaining" is a new phenomenon?

Hardly.
It was happening at least as far back as 1948, when this tale appeared!
This never-reprinted story of business, love, and the business of love is from Prize's Young Romance #4 (1948).
Layouts by Jack Kirby, pencils by Jerry Robinson & Mort Meskin, inks by Joe Simon.
The writer is unknown, but believed to be Simon and/or Kirby.
Next Week:
We're Not Yet Sure What We'll Present!
But We 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 Buy...
Paid Link

Wednesday, December 3, 2025

Yuletide Tidings PEP COMICS "Archie in 'Christmas Cheers' "

It's comics' all-American boy...as most of you don't know him...
...a buck-toothed, layabout, closer to Reggie (who doesn't appear in this tale), than the wholesome teen of today!
(BTW, for an explanation of War Bonds, and why Archie's dad invested part of his son's $50 check, go HERE!)
Written by Harry Sahle and Ed Goggin, penciled by Sahle and inked by "Ginger" (Virginia Drury), this story from MLJ's Pep Comics #46 (1944) is notable for the debut of two characters; Pop Tate, owner of "Pop's Chocklit Shop" (Called "Tate's" in this tale), and Gabby, a short-lived character who screwed-up other people's lives by continually blabbing things others were not meant to know!
As you can see, the original Bob Montana character designs (which Sahle and Drury matched almost exactly) had not yet been updated to the streamlined Dan DeCarlo versions, which serve as the primary templates of the characters from the 1950s to this day!
Next Week:
We don't know what we'll publish...yet!
But, 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 Buy...