Showing posts with label romance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label romance. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Advice d'Amour LOVE DIARY & LOVE JOURNAL "Prescription for Happiness" & "SOS for Love"

You'll Note We're Combining Two Romance Counseling Features into One Post!

It's because of legendary artist John Buscema!
Though most of his 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've been presenting 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
It's Time for the Annual Gothic Romance Beach Read, Running Monday Thru Friday!
You'll Cry Your Eyes Out If You Miss It!
And now a Word from Our Sponsor...
Support True Love Comics Tales
Visit Amazon and Buy...

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!
Paid Link

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Advice d'Amour MARY WORTH featuring TOM KANE

Comics' Best-Known Little Old Lady/Busybody Returns...

...with a never-reprinted compilation from her still-ongoing newspaper comic strip!







Appearing in the Standard Comics one-shot Major Hoople Comics (1943), this 1942 tale by "Dale Allen" (Co-creators writer Allen Saunders and artist Dale Connor) introduced Connie Barclay, who ends up marrying ongoing character Tom Kane, and the two then fade from the series.
Ironically, Dale Connor left the strip shortly after this.
Ken Ernst, the longest-running illustrator on the strip began his run, which would continue until he passed away in 1985.
As we mentioned, the series continues to this day, one of the few to survive from the 1930s to the present without a break!
Check out the current Mary Worth strip HERE! and a cool article about the series (with timeline) HERE!

Next Week:
Another Annoying Busybody Offers Love Advice!
And We Can Say...
You'll Cry Your Eyes Out If You Miss It!
And now a word from our sponsor!
Support True Love Comics Tales!
Visit Amazon and Buy...

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Advice d'Amour MR ANTHONY'S LOVE CLINIC "I Thought You Were Single"

We've Met This Real-Life Romance Know-It-All Before...

...as seen HERE, but you won't see him this time until near the end of this sorrowful tale, when he'll dispense his "Advice d'Amour"!









This never-reprinted tale from Hillman's Mr Anthony's Love Clinic #3 (1950) showed the title's namesake knew his stuff...at least when it came to matters of the heart!

Next Week...
Another Busybody Who Believes He/She Knows What's Best for Our Love Lives!
You'll Cry Your Eyes Out If You Miss It!
And now a word from our sponsor...
Please Support True Love Comics Tales
Visit Amazon and Order...

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Divorce American-Style BEST LOVE "I Craved His Kisses!"

No, This Isn't a Romance on the Range Story...

...it's definitely Divorce American-Style, and just happens to start in the present-day West...specifically Las Vegas, home of "quckie divorces"!






Scripted by an unknown writer (but likely the book's editor, Stan Lee), penciled by Werner Roth & Bill Everett and inked by Everett, this story of divorcees, divorce lawyers, and...well...failed divorce (which means a rekindled, successful marriage) and another, likely, marriage...appeared in Timely's Best Love #36 (1950).

Next Week:
We Have No Idea Which Story of Divorce We're Going to Run...Yet!
But We Guarantee...
You'll Cry Your Eyes Out If You Miss It!
And now a word from our sponsor...
Support True Love Comics Tales
Visit Amazon and Buy...
(which reprints this story of almost-divorce and horny divorce lawyers)
Paid Link

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

Prom Night: Dream or Nightmare? JETTA OF THE 21st CENTURY "Jet Jaunt"

It's Prime Time for Prom time...Even If It's in the Future...as Seen from the 1950s!
(We didn't skip the 1950s, just moved it down the line)
But, in teen humor comic books (even set in the future), things never go smoothly!
OK, maybe it's just as well that we of the real 21st Century still don't have flying cars...
As you might have guessed, Archie artist Dan DeCarlo was the illustrator for this tale from Standard Comics' Jetta of the 21st Century #5 (1952), which was actually her first issue!
(Issues 1-4 were a romance comic called Today's Romance!)
Next week:
Our Final Prom Story, Set in the Swinging '70s! And 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..
Support True Love Comics Tales
Visit 
Amazon and Order...

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

Romance on the Range GOLDEN WEST LOVE "A Woman Scorned"

A Sub-Sub-Genre Within the Sub-Genre of Western Romances...

...was the "Contemporary Western Romance", which took place in the present day,







Like stories we presented HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE, this never-reprinted tale from Kirby Publishing's Golden West Love #2 (1949) took a character from a contemporary urban setting and placed him/her into a rural Western-style environment.
Illustrated by Bruno Premani, the writer is unknown.
Kirby Publishing (no relation to Joe Simon & Jack Kirby) is unique in that it only published six titles during it's two-year existence, half of which were romance books: Enchanting Love, Golden Love, and Golden West Love!

Next week:
We haven't decided yet which Western Romance Story 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...
Support True Love Comics Tales
Visit Amazon and Buy...
New Western Romance Graphic Novel
Paid Link