Hot Snow HEART THROBS "Winter Meeting" & GIRLS" LOVE STORIES "That Special Moment"

 Here's a (Literally) Kool, Twice-Told Tale of the Flames of Love...

...kindled in the snow!

Appearing in DC's Heart Throbs #69 (1960-61), which came out in late autumn-early winter, the Tony Abruzzo & Bernard Sachs-illustrated story perfectly-captured the mood of the season!
When it was reprinted a decade later in DC's Girls' Love Stories #163 (1971), also in late autumn-early winter, it was "updated" with then-current hairstyles and fashions!
In addition, because the "Heart Throbs" header on each page was removed, the art was extended, resulting in some interesting layout reworking, like on the splash page!
But, unlike most "updated" reprints, some of this one's captions and dialogue balloons have been rewritten...

It's unknown why some of the dialogue and captions were re-written.
Next Week , We're Going Mod for February!
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Laugh at Love! TRUER THAN TRUE ROMANCE "I Hate My Hair!" / FALLING IN LOVE "Stolen Dreams!"

Over the past two weeks, we presented stories created in the early 1970s...the end of romance comics!

For the remaining two entries, we're running stories created during the 1950s-60s, the Silver Age of Comics!

Ironically, writer Jeanne Martinet would be considered "politically-incorrect" today for her characterization of androgenous appearance and the resulting gender confusion!

Hardly the sort of thing penciler Tony Abruzzo, inker Bernard Sachs, and an unknown writer had in mind when they created the story for DC's Falling In Love #4 (1956).

Interestingly, when this story was reprinted over a decade later in DC's Falling in Love #99 (1968), only the women's hairstyles were "updated", with the protaganist's hair modified to the then-trendy "page boy" style!

Neither the mens' hair nor anybody's fashions were updated!

(They usually gave the men sideburns and/or longer hair to make them look "mod"!)

But they felt they had to change her hair!

Go figure...

Next Week:

The Final Serious Romance Story Rewritten for Laughs and We Guarantee That...

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

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Amorous Education PERFECT LOVE "Lesson in Love"

Did private schools really have such restrictive rules for the faculty as shown here?

Or is this never-reprinted tale from Ziff-Davis' Perfect Love #8 (1952) just badly-scripted?

Wow! Are they strict or what?

We know it's illustrated by penciler Jim Mooney and inker Bernard Sachs...but we don't know who the writer was since the records for Ziff-Davis' long-defunct comics division no longer exist!

Next Week...

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

But, We Can Guarantee That...

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

(Yeah, we know you've heard that before, but it's true!)

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The Golden Age of Romance Comics

WARTIME ROMANCES "Some Sergeants are Sweethearts"

This never-reprinted tale from 1953 may not look like a tale about romance...

...but trust us...it is!

So what did you expect?

This story's from 1953, not 2022!

Note that this is the sort of story that could only work as a prose or graphic narrative, since if it were a movie or tv presentation, the sergeant's voice would give away the twist ending!
Except for inker Bernard Sachs, the other creative credits for this tale from St John's WarTime Romances #15 are unknown.

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?)

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HEART THROBS "I Know My Love!"

The story we presented yesterday, "Summer Love", had previously-appeared under this cover...

..in DC's Heart Throbs #63 (1960).

When it was reprinted in 1970, the title was also changed.

(DC tended to do this more than Marvel.)

It drives comics historians nuts trying to match up different printings of stories!

John Romita Sr was doing a lot of romance comics work for DC during this period, before leaving to go to Marvel in early 1965.

You'll note that, besides the usual "updating" of hair and clothing, the art in the reprint version shown yesterday is "extended" on each page because the original pages had a printed header across the top of the art area.

The reprints eliminated the headers, and the art was extended either along the top or bottom of the page, depending on which way would be easier and/or faster to do.

As we showed HERE, 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.

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?)

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