Love in the Time of Covid-19 CYNTHIA DOYLE: NURSE IN LOVE "Decision"

Wonder why the suffix "... Nurse in Love" is used for this series?

Well. when a character who's never appeared before can deduce what's going on, it's pretty damned blatant!

You have to ask, if Cynthia Doyle: Nurse in Love's feelings are that obvious to a person she's never seen before, why doesn't Doctor Benson realize how Nurse Doyle feels?

Because this is a soap opera in comic book form, that's why!

It's not meant to be even a semi-serious feature about a female medical professional, like Dr Pat!

This is, as most 1950s-1970s strips starring nurses were, a three-Kleenex romance comic!

Heck, before the book became Cynthia Doyle: Nurse in Love as of #66, it was Sweetheart Diaries, a romance anthology!

Cynthia appeared in a single story in the final issue, then the entire book was turned over to her!
Why?

As we pointed out in an entry about City Surgeon, in the early 1960s, one of the most-popular genres in pop culture was "medical drama"!

Spearheaded on TV by hunky prime-time physicians Dr Kildare and Ben Casey along with the related series The Nurses as well as daytime soap operas with hospital settings and paperback romance novels with covers featuring "studs in scrubs" with swooning nurses, comics hopped on the medical bandwagon!

Charlton , which couldn't afford the rights to comics based on any of the TV shows, launched numerous series featuring doctors and nurses including Dr Tom Brent: Young Intern, Nurse Betsy Crane, Young Interns, Sue & Sally Smith: Flying Nurses and, of course, this book!

(Oddly, there were never any cross-over stories between the various books!)

Written by Joe Gill, penciled by Dick Giordano and inked by Vince Colletta, this story from issue #69 (1963) came about halfway through the book's run.

BTW, if you're wondering why this story has a "Covid-19" classification, it's because Dr Stark is suffering from a fatal disease, and the surgery can only postpone his inevitable demise!

Note: there were never any comic series or books about male nurses!

There were several one-off tales, but the profession was considered "unmanly".

Next Week...

Another Tale of Disease, Debilitating Conditions and Desire!

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

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Nurse Nurse

Love in the Time of Covid-19 TRUE LOVE CONFESSIONS "Fool's Gold..."

Why is it that most stories involving two medical personnel in love show the woman as a nurse?

And that she's in the profession only to find a doctor to marry?

This never-reprinted tale from Premier's True Love Confessions #8 (1955) features not one but two studly doctors for the nurse to choose from!

The story, illustrated by Hy Fleishman, also gives Lila a third guy (rich, older, but non-medical) to choose from!

But in the end, she opts for the poor, but dedicated, Roc!

Next Week...

Another Tale of Debilitating Conditions and Desire!

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

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Agonizing Love

The Golden Age of Romance Comics

Love in the Time of Covid-19 LOVE ROMANCES "Confessions of Judith Temple"

Despite the lurid title...

...this is a story about disease and it's effect on a young woman's life!

Wow! How things have changed!

To think a bunch of busybody biddies might have the power to drive someone out of town without any evidence of wrongdoing!

Sounds a lot like the chant "LOCK HER UP!", eh?

"Infantile paralysis" is another name for polio, for which Dr Jonas Salk developed a vaccine in 1955, four years after this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Love Romances #19 was published!

Versatile multi-genre illustrator Frank R. Sieminsky did several dozen comic stories from romance to Westerns to crime and horror from the late 1940s to early 1950s.

What he did after that is unknown...

Next Week...

Another Tale of Debilitating Conditions and Desire!

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

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Agonizing Love

The Golden Age of Romance Comics

Love in the Time of Covid-19 TEEN SECRET DIARY "He Loves Me"

Though it's all but eliminated now, polio (a virus like Covid-19)...

... was once rampant in our population, crippling hundreds of thousands until a vaccine was created!

Interesting how polio proved to be an "equalizer", turning a social snob into (as my father used to say) "a genuine human being"!

Penciled by (I think) Tony Talarico and inked (definitely) by Sal Trapani, this never-reprinted story from Charlton's Teen Secret Diary #3 (1960) is a paean to a time when we were a somewhat more empathetic society.

The writer is, unfortunately, unknown.

The fact one of our then-recent Presidents, Franklin D Roosevelt, was crippled by polio was a factor in the speed a cure was found.

Wonder if that would work today...

Next Week...

Another Tale of Debilitating Conditions and Desire!

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

And now a word from our sponsor...

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Agonizing Love

The Golden Age of Romance Comics

Love in the Time of Covid-19 CINDERELLA LOVE "My Secret Yearning"

Beautiful socialite or dedicated lab assistant!

Who will win the handsome doctor?

It's a romantic triangle...created by disease!

Fran Matera illustrated this tale of desires, decisions, and disease from Ziff-Davis' Cinderella Love #7 (1952).

The writer is unknown, but it could be the book's editor Jerry (Superman) Siegel!

Next Week...

Another Tale of Debilitating Conditions and Desire!

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

And now a word from our sponsor...

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Agonizing Love

The Golden Age of Romance Comics

Love in the Time of Covid-19 BEWARE "Black Death" & TALES FROM THE TOMB "Devil's Plague"

Here's a story that was so not nice, they presented it twice!

Illustrator Henry Kiefer and an unknown writer crafted this tale for Trojan Magazine's Beware #7 (1954), during the height of the horror comics boom!

Because of the content, it was never reprinted after the Comics Code came into effect!

(And, to this day, still hasn't been reprinted!)

But that doesn't mean the story itself hasn't reappeared...

...as the editor of Eerie Publications' b/w magazine line (which was not regulated by the Comics Code) had artist Oscar Fraga re-do the tale verbatim from the original script in Tales From the Tomb V2N3 (1970)!

This version has been reprinted several times throughout the Eerie Publications line from 1971 to 1980, when they went out of business!

Next Week...

Another Tale of Debilitating Conditions and Desire!

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

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Weird Love

Volume 1: You Know You Want It!