WARTIME ROMANCES "Lovelife of an Army Nurse"

It is said that "All is fair in love and war"...

...as this nurse learns the hard way in a story from St John's Wartime Romances #1 (1951)!

Penciled by legendary "good girl" artist Mat Baker and inked by Ray Osirin, this tale of combat and cattiness was typical of the more adult approach that St John's creatives took in their various romance titles.

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Matt Baker

Art of Glamour

Romance on the Range ADVENTURES IN ROMANCE "Stopgap: the Saga of Coby Nash"

Though not strictly a "Western romance" title......St John's anthology Adventures in Romance was an attempt to mix several genres with romance...including high adventure, swashbuckling pirates, and, as you'll see, Westerns...to attract both male and female readers!

Despite running romance strips in almost every genre (except horror and sci-fi), the book only lasted two issues.

Illustrator Leonard Starr spent a decade in comics before moving on to newspaper comic strips, first as an assistant on Flash Gordon, then as the creator/writer/artist of the long-running Mary Perkins: on Stage!
He's best known to contemporary audiences as the creator/writer/designer of the animated TV series ThunderCats!

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Cowgirl Bride

Amorous Education WARTIME ROMANCE "I Tried to Burn the Candle at Both Ends!"

Though it appeared in Wartime Romances...

...this story has nothing to do with anything even vaguely-military related!

Written by Dana Dutch and illustrated by Matt Baker, this story from St John's Wartime Romances #1 (1951), like all the tales in the issue, was a reprint (but all were retitled from their original publication)!
In fact, this one was originally called "I Should Have Played Hard-to-Get!" when it ran in St John's Blue Ribbon Comics: Teen-Age Diary Secrets #4 (1949)...where it was the cover feature!

With the Korean War under way, the editors thought a romance title based on how war affects male-female relationships might be a hot seller!

But they could only find two military-themed stories in their inventory, so they lead with those tales and used other, non military-related tales to fill out the issue!
With #2, they started running new material commissioned specifically for the book, which ran 18 issues through 1953, outlasting the war!

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Matt Baker
Art of Glamour

Amorous Education TEEN-AGE DIARY SECRETS "I Was Tired of BEING GOOD..."

 How can you resist a tale with a titillating title like that?

Plus the art is by legendary good girl artist Matt Baker!!!

The writer of this never-reprinted tale from St John's Teen-Age Diary Stories #4 (1949) is unknown, though it's suspected to be Dana Dutch.

BTW, this particular issue was actually a magazine, featuring both fiction and non-fiction text features (with b/w illustrations) and a color comics section with three stories, including this one.

For whatever reason, the later issues of the title were standard comic-book size and format.

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Matt Baker

Art of Glamour

WARTIME ROMANCES "Some Sergeants are Sweethearts"

This never-reprinted tale from 1953 may not look like a tale about romance...

...but trust us...it is!

So what did you expect?

This story's from 1953, not 2022!

Note that this is the sort of story that could only work as a prose or graphic narrative, since if it were a movie or tv presentation, the sergeant's voice would give away the twist ending!
Except for inker Bernard Sachs, the other creative credits for this tale from St John's WarTime Romances #15 are unknown.

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ADVENTURES IN ROMANCE "September Squall"

Now that it's September...

...here's a tale for the final weekend of warm weather that really fits the concept of a "beach read'!

You'll note a couple of two-page spreads at the beginning of the story.
St John's Adventures in Romance #1 (1949), experimented with doing double-page spreads to establish a distinctive "look".
Sadly, it only lasted two issues.  ;-(

The painted cover art (by the story's artist, Warren King) was based on the final panel of the story.
While other comics publishers used painted covers on their romance comics, most of those were re-used pulp or paperback paintings which were unrelated to the interior stories!
Artist Warren King spent several years in comic books doing everything from superheroes to horror to romance, before moving into newspaper cartooning, becoming the in-house editorial cartoonist at the NY Daily News and winning the National Cartoonists Society Best Editorial Cartoonist Award in 1968.
He passed away in 1978.

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?)

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 embellished with the cover art from this week's torrid tale...

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