Lost Love MY LOVE "It Happened at Woodstock!"

Who Would've Believed that the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival...

...would result in never-reprinted, cover-featured romance comics stories, from both Marvel and DC???

First up, Marvel's entry, from My Love #14 (1971), which was actually the later entry~

Written by Gary Friedrich and illustrated by Gray Morrow, it's the steamiest Comics Code-approved story I've ever read!

Next Week:

DC's Never-Reprinted Woodstock Story!

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

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Marvel Romance: the Trade Paperback!

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Lost Love MY LOVE "I Was a Girl Who Would Stop at Nothing!"

Our Theme for September is "Lost Love"...

...but it's not about characters who lose their paramours (because that happens all the time), but never-reprinted stories from the Bronze Age such as this cover-featured one from Marvel's My Love #17 (1972) with a kool cover by then up-and-comer Alan Weiss!

Scripted by Stan Lee, penciled by George Tuska and likely-inked (opinions vary) by John Verpoorten.

Speaking of Stan Lee...

Does the unnamed decidedly-young male ingenue of the tale look...familiar?
Stan was, in fact, 50, the year this story was published!
Are we looking at the comic book equivalent of a mid-life crisis?

On a more serious note, in 1968 Marvel revived their long-cancelled romance comics, when they changed distributors and expanded their line from only eight titles a month to over two dozen!
(Before the 1957 implosion, Atlas had numerous romance books, including Western and military love titles, some of which we've run on this blog!)
Almost all Marvel's current creatives (except, ironically, Jack Kirby, who co-created romance comics with Joe Simon) contributed to My Love and Our Love Story, but that wasn't enough to keep them going!
By 1972 they were running new material only in the front of the books with reprints filling the rest.
Interestingly, they were already reprinting earlier (1968-69) stories from Our Love Story and My Love, usually in the other title (My Love stories in Our Love Story, Our Love Story tales in My Love) because using older, 1950s Atlas tales usually required redrawing hairstyles and clothing to bring them "up to date" as we showed HERE).
As a result, almost every story done for the Silver/Bronze Age books has been reprinted at least once...except for four of them, which no one who didn't buy the original books has seen since that era!

But you'll see them here in September!

And You'll Cry Your Eyes Out If You Miss Them!

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Laugh at Love MARVEL ROMANCE REDUX "Love Me, Love My Clones!" / MY LOVE "Jilted!"

It's possible to interpret "symbolic" splash panels literally...

...as RE-writer Paul Di Fillipo does in this story...which is not originally by writer Jean Thomas, penciler Gene Colan, and inker Bill Everett as these credits list!

Before we proceed to the original tale, we'd like to point out that the art here is so iconically "romance comic", that a panel from page 3 was used for the cover of the trade paperback reprint Marvel Romance (2006)...

So, who did the art?

All will be revealed at the end...

For the record, the art is by penciler Don Heck and inker John Romita Sr!

The writer is unknown, but suspected to be Stan Lee!

I did a little research on-line at the Grand Comics Database (an amazing resource) and discovered...
1) There are a couple of dozen romance comics tales spread over several different publishers titled "Jilted" or "Jilted!" (Note the exclamation point!)
2) None of the stories with that title had credits for Jean Thomas. Gene Colan, or Bill Everett!
3) The Marvel Romance Redux reworking's credits list John Romita as penciler and Jim Mooney as inker...with question marks, and states..."Art is credited to Gene Colan, pencils, and Bill Everett, inks, but this is clearly in error."
Sloppy reference work on Marvel Romance Redux by the editor and/or assistant editor, eh?

Next Week:

Our Final Humorous Romance Story (for now) and We Guarantee That, Even Though It Is Funny...

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

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Marvel Romance Redux

Laugh at Love! MARVEL ROMANCE REDUX "Girl with Bogart's Brain!" / MY LOVE "As Time Goes By!"

Several years after DC did Truer than True Romance...

...Marvel did a similar project...but with a couple of differences...

Rewritten by John Lustig, already known for a similar series of re-written comics called Last Kiss, this Gene Colan penciled, Dick Giordano inked tale originally appeared in Marvel's My Love V2N16 (1972), originally scripted by Gary Freidrich during a period when Bogie-mania was sweeping the country due to interest in the actor as a result of Woody Allen's then-current movie Play It Again, Sam, where the ghost of Humphrey Bogart appears to Allen's nebbishy neurotic character to offer advice about romance.

With the Bogie revival in full swing in art/revival theatres (there were no DVD/BluRays, streaming services or even VHS tapes or Turner Classic Movies in 1971), someone at Marvel decided it would make a kool romance tale...

BTW, we mentioned there were a couple of differences between Marvel Romance Redux and Truer Than True Romance...
1) This project was limited to stories just reprinted that same year in the trade paperback Marvel Romance (2006)...

...perhaps because the raw source material (photostats and film negatives) was readily-available.

And it explains the title; Marvel Romance Redux!
2) The rewrites were all done by male writers who likely weren't actual fans of the original stories (though they were fans of the artists' work...in other genres)!

Next Week:

Another Serious Romance Story Rewritten for Laughs and We Guarantee That...

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

And now a word from our sponsor...

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Marvel Romance Redux