MARVEL ROMANCE REDUX "I Was a Beach Blanket Barbarian!"

Five years after DC did the snarky Truer than True Romance trade paperback...

..which took old romance comics and rewrote them,.Marvel did a mini-series based on the same concept...except it was written entirely by males!
(The DC book was rewritten by a female writer.)
Here's what they did with yesterday's tale.with an interesting combination of both the Jack Kirby/Vince Colletta original and the John Romita Sr-modified/updated version..

Re-written by John Lustig, who had experience doing similar re-writes of Charlton's First Kiss series as Last Kiss.
You can check them out HERE!

Next Week...

We Don't Yet Know What We'll Present, But We DO Know...

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

Please Support True Love Comics Tales

Visit Amazon and Order...

Marvel Romance Redux

TEEN-AGE ROMANCE / OUR LOVE STORY "Summer Must End!"

We're only at the middle of August, not quite at the end of Summer......

Cover art by Jack Kirby and George Klein

...but this tale by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Vince Colletta just screamed to be told (and not for the reason you think)!

PSST!

Wanna know a secret?

This story, which we're presenting from Atlas' Teen-Age Romance #84 (1961) later appeared in Marvel's Our Love Story #9 (1971) in an extremely-modified form!

The art in Our Love Story was retouched by art director John Romita Sr to "update" the hairstyles and some of the fashions, including the swimsuits...

"Why did they do that?" you may ask...

With sales falling on most non-superhero genres in the late 1960s (including Western and war as well as romance), 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.
But this wasn't the last time the story would be modified.
As you'll see tomorrow, Marvel could modify more than just the art!

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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.

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?)

And now a word from out sponsor...

Check out the

True Love Comics Tales™

Comics Collectibles Shop