Amorous Education MY DATE COMICS "Unusual Dates as told to Jean Anne Marten: Story of Fran Pickett"

Though It Was, Technically, a Teen Humor Comic...

...Hillman's My Date was sort of a lead-in to the first serious romance comics Young Romance and Young Love!

Conceived and produced as a competitor to the escapades of Archie and the hormonally-driven Riverdale crowd, My Date featured a lot of work by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, though they were still assembling their Simon & Kirby Studio at that point.
Unlike Young Romance and Young Love, which the S&K Studio "packaged" (editing/scripting/art/pre-press production) for Prize Comics, and began a couple of months after My Date hit the stands, their work on My Date was edited by one of Hillman Comics' in-house staff, Ed Cronin.
But, it's believed that they felt comics were ready for a more serious book about romance, similar to the numerous pulp and slick-stock prose magazines of the era popular with teen-age and young adult women, resulting in Young Romance, which was also young adult-oriented!
This particular story, part of the anthology feature My Date, supposedly-about readers' letters adapted into graphic form, which ran through all four issues of the series, was illustrated by Dan Barry, a journeyman who later freelanced for a lot of different publishers before moving over to steady work on syndicated newspaper strips.
The writer is, sadly, unknown.

Next Week:
We'll Present Another Amorous Education Adventure!
You'll Cry Your Eyes Out if You Miss It!

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Love on the Racks

A History of American Romance Comics
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Tales Twice-Told TIPPY TEEN / VICKI "3rd Finger, Right Hand"

She's supposedly two different girls, almost a decade apart...

...even though both of them have the same boyfriend!

When this story from Tower's Tippy Teen #3 (1966) was reprinted in Atlas/Seaboard's Vicki #1 (1975), more than just the fashions and hairstyles were altered*.

Tippi became "Vicki", though her boyfriend remained "Tommy Trippit" in both versions!
Trivia: this was one of the most-reprinted Tippi Teen stories of all!
Besides the reprint in Vicki, it had previously-been reprinted (without hair/fashion alterations) in the final issue of Tippy Teen in 1969!

Why did Seaboard change the character's name from Tippy to Vicki?

Nobody's certain.

But, since Vicki was cancelled after only four issues, the question is now moot.

*With sales falling on most non-superhero genres in the late 1960s (including Western and war as well as romance and teen humor [except for the Archie titles]), "updated reprinting" became a common practice on teen humor and romance comics until the genres all-but died out in the late 1970s.

Editors felt that:

a) the plots were relatively timeless.

b) updating the art was cheaper than totally-redrawing the story. 

c) the artists were better-utilized doing stuff that sold better (like superheroes).
d) the audience for teen humor and romance comics, unlike superhero comics, totally-changed every 5-6 years anyway, and wouldn't notice the "old" plots.

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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Archie's Rivals in Teen Comics

1940s-1970s

An Illustrated History

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Anything BUT Archie! HOMER HOOPER "Twelve-Dollar Conundrum"

How Close Can You Come to Being an Archie Clone...without  Being Sued?

Atlas Comics sure gave it a shot with this series!

This typical tale from Atlas' Homer Hooper #3 (1953) was scripted by Stan Lee and illustrated by Hy Rosen.

Besides the blonde (who was well-off but not rich), the red-headed lead and the nasty frenemy, the series also featured a brunette, Homer's skinny best friend with a big nose, an athlete, brainy nerd, annoyed teachers and principal, etc.

Hy Rosen, who did a credible job as a Dan DeCarlo clone was one of the few artists working in the style who didn't end up at Archie Comics.

In the mid-1940s he added newspaper editorial cartooning to his already-busy schedule.

When comics almost died in the mid-1950s, Hy took on advertising storyboard work to take up the slack, creating the "White Tornado" ad campaign for Ajax Cleanser!

Hy's last work was for Harvey Comics in the early 1990s...on New Kids on the Block and Saved by the Bell comics!

Interestingly, his eulogy at his "home" newspaper, The Albany Times-Union, makes no mention of his comic book work!

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?)
And now a word from our sponsor..

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Archie's Rivals in Teen Comics

1940s-1970s

An Illustrated History
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Yuletide Tidings PEP COMICS "Archie in 'Christmas Cheers' "

It's comics' all-American boy...as most of you don't know him...

...a buck-toothed, layabout, closer to Reggie (who doesn't appear in this tale), than the wholesome teen of today!
(BTW, for an explanation of War Bonds, and why Archie's dad invested part of his son's $50 check, go HERE!)

Written by Harry Sahle and Ed Goggin, penciled by Sahle and inked by "Ginger" (Virginia Drury), this story from MLJ's Pep Comics #46 (1944) is notable for the debut of two characters; Pop Tate, owner of "Pop's Chocklit Shop" (Called "Tate's" in this tale), and Gabby, a short-lived character who screwed-up other people's lives by continually blabbing things others were not meant to know!

As you can see, the original Bob Montana character designs (which Sahle and Drury matched almost exactly) had not yet been updated to the streamlined Dan DeCarlo versions, which serve as the primary templates of the characters from the 1950s to this day!

Next Week:

We don't know what we'll publish...yet!

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

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Archie and Friends All-Stars Christmas Stocking
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COOKIE "Turkey Meets Jerky"

I couldn't find a single romance comic with a Thanksgiving theme...

...but, thankfully (pun intended), teen humor comics have a number of them!

Note, there is a romantic sub-plot involving Cookie's girlfriend AngelPuss!

Curiously, this tale, written and illustrated by Dan Gordon, is from the same issue our previous Cookie holiday tale appeared in, ACG's Cookie #10 (1947)!

Dan Gordon was a writer-animator-director for the Fleischer Studios (Superman, Popeye), then went into comics, finally returning to animation at Hanna-Barbera where he co-created (among others) The Flintstones!

Next Week:

We don't know what we'll publish...yet!

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

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Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories

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!

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Dan DeCarlo's Jetta