A Month of Matt Baker TEEN-AGE ROMANCES "They Called Me a Wayward Girl"

Sometimes a "Bad Girl" is Just a Mis-directed "Good Girl"...

...who just needs a chance!

Scripted by Dana Dutch and illustrated by Matt Baker, fresh off his tenure at Fox Comics where he illustrated scantly-clad heroines like Phantom Lady and Rulah, the two teamed-up in this premiere issue of St John's Teen-Age Romances (1949), beginning a run that matched Simon & Kirby's genre ground-breaking romance books for Prize Comics in storytelling and sales!

Next Week:

We Don't Yet Know Which Matt Baker Story We'll Present, But We Guarantee that...

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

And Now a Word from Our Sponsor!

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Matt Baker
Art of Glamour
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A Month of Matt Baker COWGIRL ROMANCES "Stars Fell on Arizona" / MOVIE COMICS "Mitzi in Hollywood Meets Sonny Sagebrush"

We've shown you reprints where fashions and hairstyles were updated...

but this story from Fiction House's CowGirl Romances #10 (1952) doesn't do that!

OK, pretty straightforward tale of a starry-eyed girl living near a movie location, getting to appear in the movie, meeting her screen idol, and not finding true love, right?

But, that's not how it started out!

This is actually a re-use of lovely Matt Baker art for an earlier ongoing series, Mitzi in Hollywood, about a struggling actress looking for her big break in Hollywood!

This particular episode from Fiction House's Movie Comics #4 (1947) was about working as an extra on a Western movie set...and the original script was quite different...

Sadly, this was the final issue of Movie Comics, so no more Mitzi adventures ever appeared...except as heavily-modified reprints like our lead story!
Though Matt Baker is best-known as a cheesecake/glamour girl artist, he was, in fact, quite proficient in other genres, such as Westerns (as shown above), sci-fi, war, adventure, and even horror!
And yes, he did a lot of romance stories and covers, as you'll see all this month!

Next Week:

We Don't Yet Know Which Matt Baker Story We'll Present, But We Guarantee that...

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

And Now a Word from Our Sponsor!

Please Support True Love Comics Tales

Visit Amazon and Order...

Matt Baker

Art of Glamour

HEART THROBS "Give Him Back" & YOUNG ROMANCE "Love is a Lie!"

Our (post) Valentine's Day piece has a classic romance story theme...

..and a unique setting!

What more could you want?

Cowboy/Western romances were. briefly, a hot comic sub-genre in the 1950s, with everyone doing one (or more) titles (Hey, I think I've just discovered March's theme!), but they were all but extinct by the 1970s, with this being the very last tale (chronologically) I've been able to find!

Penciled by Tony Abruzzo and inked by Arthur Peddy, this never-reprinted story from DC's Heart Throbs #141 (1972) is the only Black Western romance comic story I've ever seen.
Would it surprise you to see it is, in fact, another reworked reprint?
Here's the original version from DC's Young Romances #134 (1965)...

One technical note: Besides reworking hair and clothing, the reprint art retouchers also had to modify the height of the panels when they removed the "Young Romance" header at the top of each page, resulting in several oddly-composed panels!

Next week:

Another Example of the Fascinating Attempt by DC to be More Inclusive...

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

(Oh, you've heard that, eh?)

And now a word from out sponsor...

Visit our

Negro Romance

Comic Collectibles Store

featuring the cover art from all four HTF issues 

GIRLS' LOVE STORIES "We Can Never Marry!" & "A Marriage Without Love!"

A bride getting cold feet at her wedding is as universal a concept as can be imagined...
...transcending ethnicity, religion, or societal upbringing!

A happy ending for this tale from DC's Girls' Love Stories #172 (1972).

But, if you're a regular reader of this blog, it might seem a bit...familiar!

That's because we already ran it last year...sort of...as part of our "Wedding Bliss" series!

This version appeared six years earlier, also in DC's Girls' Love Stories, but in #121 (1966).
(Altered reprints didn't usually appear in the same series the original version was published in!)
Curiously, the Grand Comics DataBase doesn't make mention of the reuse of the story in either of its' Girls' Love Stories listings for #121 or #172!
And, they can't make up their minds as to who illustrated it.
I lean towards a combination of John Rosenberger and Win Mortimer.

Next week:

Another Example of the Fascinating Attempt by DC to be More Inclusive...

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

(Oh, you've heard that, eh?)

And now a word from out sponsor...

Visit our

Negro Romance

Comic Collectibles Store

featuring the cover art from all four HTF issues on kool kollectibles!