Amorous Education/Wedding Bliss OUR LOVE STORY "A Boy to Marry!"

Our final Amorous Education entry until September...

...involves graduation and the choices made after it, as this cover by John Buscema and inker John Verpoorten shows!

Written by Stan Lee, penciled by Gene Colan and inked by Dick Ayers, this tale from Marvel's Our Love Story #8 (1970) shows not going to college has its' benefits...perhaps not the message Stan meant to send...

It's also a perfect segue into our theme for June...Wedding Bliss, all about the actual ceremony when two souls are bonded into one..but in romance comics it doesn't always go smoothly, as you'll see starting next week!

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!)

And Now a Word from Our Sponsor...

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Agonizing Love
The Golden Age of Romance Comics
(BTW, note she's wearing a wedding dress!)

MY LOVE "Must I Live Without Love?"

We saw last week how wonderfully legendary artist John Buscema portrayed women in swimsuits...

...so here's a cover that takes a scene occurring (in the story) during the chilly Autumn and turns it into a hot Summer pic...

When this story by writer Stan Lee, penciler John Buscema, and inker Sal Buscema (yes, John's little brother, who's an equally-gifted penciler) initially-appeared in Marvel's My Love V2N1 (1969), it wasn't the cover-featured tale.

But, when it was reprinted in Marvel's My Love Special #1 (1971), a new cover, based on the last panel of Page 6, was commissioned.

Guess they felt a bare-chested guy and bikini-clad girl would sell better than the sweater-clad couple in the story...

Next week:

Be here Monday as we begin our annual Beach Read blogathon featuring a book-length, multi-chapter Gothic romance!

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

And now a word from out sponsor..

Please Visit Amazon and Order...

Marvel Romance: the Trade Paperback!

Marvel's picked some of the best love comics from the 60s and 70s!

"It Happened at Woodstock," "My Heart Broke in Hollywood," "Love on the Rebound!"

Collects Love Romance #89 and #101-104; My Love #2, #14, #16 and #18-20; Teen-Age Romance #77 and #84, Our Love Story #5; and Patsy Walker #119.

LOVE DIARY "Not the Right Type!"

It's the middle of summer, so let's hit the beach...

...where studly lifeguards and beautiful babes mix and mingle in a hot, passionate broth under the sun!

(I gotta work on my imagery...)

Remember...always be yourself!

If the art style looks familiar, that's because this was an early assignment for John Buscema, one of the primary artists at Marvel Comics from the late 1960s until his untimely passing in 2002!

Incredibly-versatile, there was nothing John couldn't illustrate, from war to superheroes to romance to his most famous work on Conan the Barbarian!

This particular never-reprinted story from Orbit's Love Diary #36 (1953) is both penciled and inked by Buscema, a practice he almost always did during his first period in comics from 1949 to 1960.

After a brief stint in advertising, he returned to comics in 1966, quickly becoming the number two artist at Marvel behind Jack Kirby.

In order to match Kirby's legendary speed (up to five pages a day), Buscema stopped inking his work, except on very rare occasions.

When Kirby moved to DC in 1970, Buscema's style rapidly became the "house style" for the company.

(In fact, the original version of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way features Buscema demonstrating anatomy, perspective, and storytelling with his unique flair.)

Next Week:

We're Not Sure Yet Exactly What We'll Present!

But...

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

And now a word from out sponsor..

Please Support True Love Comics Tales!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Love on the Racks

A History of American Romance Comics

MY LOVE "Only Myself to Blame!"

When Last We Left Our Heartbroken Heroine...

...well, who can tell us better than Stan (the Man) Lee, himself?

And now, on with the only two-part tale in Marvel romance comic history...

Sal Buscema took over on inking from John Romita Sr, but otherwise the creative lineup stayed the same for this sequel tale from Marvel's My Love #4 (1969).

Oddly though both this and it's lead-in story were reprinted a couple of times, they were never reprinted either in the same issue or back-to-back issues!

BTW, the cover above says "My Love #38".

It's actually the cover from the previous story, reversed.

This chapter of the two-parter wasn't given the cover, so we decided to run the rather nice John Romita Sr piece as our header.

BTW, when reprinted, this tale didn't appear in My Love #38 or #39!

It appeared in Our Love Story #22 (1973), three years before the first part of the story was reprinted in My Love #38 (1976)!

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 say that a lot...but it's true!)

And now a word from out sponsor...

Please Support True Love Comics Tales!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Marvel Romance: the Trade Paperback!

Marvel picked some of the best love comics from the 60s and 70s.

Collects Love Romance #89 and #101-104; My Love #2, #14, #16 and #18-20; Teen-Age Romance #77 and #84, Our Love Story #5; and Patsy Walker #119.

MY LOVE "Man I Must Not Love!"

Besides featuring the work of three of Silver Age Marvel's artistic legends...

...this is the opener of the only two-part tale Marvel's romance line ever published!
(DC did numerous soap opera-style serialized romance strips, but Marvel never did!)

Scripted by Stan Lee, penciled by John Buscema, and inked by John Romita (Sr), the cover-featured tale from Marvel's My Love #3 (1970) has been reprinted a couple of times...but, oddly without the sequel story being reprinted either in the same issue, or even the next issue!
Weird, eh!

Next Week...

The "Soul-Stirring Sequel"!

We can guarantee that...

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

(Yeah, we say that a lot...but it's true!)

And now a word from out sponsor...
Please Support True Love Comics Tales!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Marvel Romance: the Trade Paperback!

Marvel's picked some of the best love comics from the 60s and 70s.

Collects Love Romance #89 and #101-104; My Love #2, #14, #16 and #18-20; Teen-Age Romance #77 and #84, Our Love Story #5; and Patsy Walker #119.

ROMANCES OF THE WEST "Cowboy or the Playboy?"

Did she want a man...or a real man?

This "modern" Western (set in the present) has the answer!

This never-reprinted tale from Timely's Romances of the West #1 (1949) was one of Marvel mainstay John Buscema's earliest assignments, and only his second romance tale!

To see other examples of his romance comics work from the 1950s to the 1970s click HERE!

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...
Please Support True Love Comics Tales

Visit Amazon and Order...

Agonizing Love

The Golden Age of Romance Comics