Tales Twice-Told TENDER LOVE STORIES & YOUNG ROMANCE "Fashion Plate"

When is a contemporary love story not  a contemporary love story?

When it was "contemporary" a decade earlier!

You'd think a tale heavily-oriented about current fashion would have been written and drawn...well...currently!

But this story, published in Skywald's Tender Love Stories #4 (1971), wasn't scripted and illustrated in 1971!

It was created almost a decade earlier...in 1963!

Published in Prize's Young Romance #124 (1963), the original version illustrated by Bob Powell's art studio presents the male ingenue first as a leather-clad biker, then as a preppie, and finally as an average Joe.

The reworked version, re-inked by Bill Everett, presents the guy first as a leisure-suited layabout, then a double-breasted suit-clad dandy, and finally, again, as an average Joe.

You'll also note in both cases, Bob starts out with extreme hairstyles, then gets trimmed as the tale goes on!

Of course, looking back on these tales decades later, both stories seem like "period pieces"!

And, yes, we did wear clothes like you see here in both those time periods!

They were considered "cutting edge" then.
"Why did the publisher and editor take an old story and rework it?" you may ask...

With sales falling on most non-superhero genres in the late 1960s (including Western and war as well as romance), this "updated reprinting" became a common practice on romance comics until the genre all-but died out in the late 1970s.

Publishers would do a new 8-20 page lead story and use retouched reprints to fill out the book.
(Some of the books were 100-page "Super Spectaculars"!)

Editors felt that:

a) the plots were relatively timeless.

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

c) artists were better-utilized doing stuff that sold better (like superheroes).

d) the audience for romance comics, unlike superhero comics, changed every 5-6 years anyway, and newer readers wouldn't notice the old plots!

Next Week...

We Don't Know What We're Presenting...Yet!

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

And now a word from our sponsor!

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Love and the Law POLICE TRAP "Masher!"

Riding the NYC subway can  be an adventure...

...like this atypical tale of lechery, love, and the law!

This tale of female empowerment from 1954 is from the first issue of Mainline's short-lived 1950s anthology Police Trap, illustrated (and probably written) by Bill Draut, who also did a lot of romance comics work in the 1950s-1970s, primarily for Harvey, Toby, and DC.
He continued producing material until the mid-1980s, ending up (like many other comic artists) working on animated tv series, where he was one of the primary designers for the original GI Joe cartoon.
And, please remember to be observant and careful when you ride public transportation!

Psychedelic '60s Stories MOD LOVE "Shadow from His Past"

 Concluding Our Segue Back to the Swinging '60s...

...we present the last story from the comic magazine (not comic book) Mod Love!

It's the cover-featured narrative of a musician, the girl who loves him and a...

Published in 1967. all three of the comic stories in Western Publishing's Mod Love were written by Michael Lutin, and illustrated by already-established European fine artist Michael Quarez!

The only other comic-style work in the mag was a two-page spotlite feature about the trendy NYC fashion boutique called Tiger Morse's Teenie Weenie...

Next Week: We Return to an Anything Goes Format for March!

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

Psychedelic '60s Stories MOD LOVE "As Long as I Win"

We Continue Our Segue to the Swinging '60s...

...with another time-lost, never-reprinted story from the one-shot comic magazine (not comic book), Mod Love!







The mag, published in 1967. was written by Michael Lutin, and illustrated by already-established fine artist Michael Quarez!
Next Week: the Final  Story from Mod Love !
You''ll Cry Your Eyes Out if You Miss It!

Valentine's Week Special YOUNG LOVE "Be My Valentine"

It's Almost Valentine's Day...

...and this never-reprinted tale from Prize's Young Love V4N1-#31 (1952), written and illustrated by the team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, who pioneered the romance comics genre, is all about a Valentine's Day card and it's effect on both sender and receiver!

While Young Love was the second romance comic published (Simon & Kirby's earlier comic, Young Romance in 1947 was the first), it was the last ongoing romance comic book published by a major publisher, ending it's run in 1977!
(Though Prize's comic book line had gone out of business in 1963, DC bought out the publisher's inventory, including unused material, and kept both Young Love & Young Romance going until the '70s!)
BTW, you may have noticed the handsome guy in the cover photo looked sort of familiar!
He's Robert Redford, and the photo was taken during his "photographer's male model" period in the early 1950s!

Next Week: We Return to the Swinging '60s for Another Torrid Tale of Mod Love !
You''ll Cry Your Eyes Out if You Miss It!
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Psychedelic '60s Stories MOD LOVE "She's the Hippest Girl in the World"

Here's a psychedelic piece from the Swinging '60s, when Free Love was all the rage, baby!

Best read by the light of a lava lamp while buring some incense!

Western's Mod Love (1967) was a magazine-sized 50¢ multi-color publication with all material written by Michael Lutin and illustrated by already-famous graphic artist Michael Quarez who went total "pop art", with one important difference!
Unlike most "pop art" visualizers (including myself) who used exaggerated dot screens to mimic Roy Lichtenstein's pseudo-pop art work...

...Quarez used only solid colors in his work, creating incredibly-vivid visuals, such as this two-page spread about hot, hot, hot fashion boutique Tiger Morse's Teenie Weenie!

We ran the stories over a decade ago with scans we found on the Internet, but since acquiring a copy of this very-hard-to-find publication, we've remastered them from scratch and will present them on three of the four Wednesdays in February!

But, Next Week...

...aka Valentine's Day Week, we're paying tribute to the creators of the romance comics genre, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, with a special never-reprinted, cover-featured, Valentine's Day tale from Young Love !
(And yes, that's a very young Robert Redford, during his male model period, on the cover!)

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