John Buscema Tales "Prescription for Happiness" & "S.O.S. for Love"

Though most of John Busecema's romance comics stories were one-shots...

...along with one two-parter (as shown HERE and HERE), he did do two series of 2-3 page shorts!

Entitled "Prescription for Happiness" and "S.O.S. for Love", the shorts featured distressed lovers asking a counselor for advice, much like the licensed (and unlicensed) advisors we presented last year in our Advice d'Amour tales!
Appearing in Orbit's Love Diary and Love Journal comics, the strips initially-featured rotating artists, but once Buscema took over, he stayed on both of them for the remainder of their runs, doing almost a dozen tales of woe!

Yes, the title on this one is "S.O.S. Love in Distress".

To be fair, this was the final strip in the final issue of Love Journal, so the editor can be forgiven for letting the incorrect header slip by!
After all, what were they going to do...fire him?
In a couple of cases, as Orbit was winding down operations just before cancellation, they took an "S.O.S. for Love" strip from the previous year like this one...

...and re-ran it as "Prescription for Happiness", just changing the logo and re-naming the counselor...without even redrawing him to match the other strip's host!

I guess they thought "PfH's" Ray Mann and "S.O.S.'s" Mark Ford were interchangeable!

Next Week...

What Will February Bring?

At This Point, We Haven't Decided Yet!

But We Can Assure You...

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

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Comics and Drawings

A combination of complete checklist of Buscema's comic and magazine work and a heavily-illustrated catalog of a 2009 Italian museum exhibition of his work!

LOVE DIARY "Love Slave!"

Handsome guy snuggling beautiful gal.

Looks like True Love, doesn't it?

Well, looks can be deceiving...

Typical story of the era..woman must be taught her self-destructive desires are wrong by an assertive man who knows what's best for her!

Illustrated by Marvel Comics mainstay John Buscema, this cover-featured tale from Orbit's Love Diary #47 (1954) was a reprint from just a year earlier in Orbit's Love Journal #20 (1953).

(The extremely-sexist writer is, perhaps mercifully, unknown.)

If you're wondering why it was reprinted so quickly, it was because Orbit was shutting down and simply fulfilling it's contracted obligation to the distributor to supply a specific number of issues.

It didn't matter if the books were original material or reprints.

And, at that point in comics history, creatives didn't get reprint royalties, so...

The next issue of Love Diary, also all-reprint, was the last Orbit comic ever published.

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!
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The Golden Age of Romance Comics

LOVE JOURNAL "S.O.S. for Love! Sue W and the Bandleader"

Love advice columnists were as popular in romance comics...

...as they were in other media, like radio, tv, and newspapers!

Unfortunately, my archive of Love Journal is limited, and I don't have the issue that featured the results!

Anybody want to offer their solution?

Mark Ford was Love Journal's resident busybody, but when some of his S.O.S for Love! tales were reprinted in Journal's sister title Love Diary several years later, his name was changed to Ray Mann and the strip was retitled Prescription for Happiness!

This never-reprinted tale from Orbit's Love Journal #16 (1952) 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 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:

The Return of Reach for Happiness...

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

(Things are really getting juicy...)

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