PEP COMICS "Archie: the Way It Began"

With the death* of comics icon Archie Andrews making headlines...

...we're going to look back at how it all began 75 years ago, with the very first appearance of Archie, Jughead, and Betty...

Did writer Vic Bloom and artist Bob Montana know that their creation would not only take over the comic it premiered in (Pep Comics), but eventually the entire comic company which began as MLJ Magazines in 1939 and was renamed Archie Comics in 1946?
Note the gang are presented as being around 12-14 years old instead of the 16-18 range we're familiar with.

And, with Betty shown as moving into Riverdale in this story from Pep Comics #22, you may ask "Where's Veronica?"

Next week:
 
Enter: Veronica!

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

*The Life with Archie series is actually a "What If?" or "Imaginary Story" series about what happens when Archie marries the various girls he's been involved with, and how their adult lives evolve.

So the "real" Archie is still very much alive and appearing in Archie Comics!

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SOUL LOVE "Diary of the Disappointed Doll"

We presented one story from this never-published 1970s title last year...

...and here's another never-seen story,  also scanned and presented from the original art!

Written and penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Tony DeZuniga.
Since the magazine was b/w, the art would be photostatted, then gray wash tones would be added as shown in this printed page from The ButterFly, a strip about the first Black superheroine (predating Storm of the X-Men) that appeared in the 1971 b/w magazine Hell-Rider.
You can read about her HERE.

Soul Love would have been the second romance comic oriented to a Black audience.

The first was the 1950s series Negro Romance, which we covered HERE.

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Stand tall and proud with a Lichtenstein-style comic book image of lovers in a romantic clinch!

A Pop Art classic with a Black twist!

GREAT LOVES "Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning"

Ever wonder if writers of romantic fiction were, themselves, happy...

 ...if they actually found True Love, or just wrote about it?

Well, wonder no more!

Illustrated by Jerry Robinson (who co-created both The Joker and Robin the Boy Wonder), this brief tale from Gold Key's Dear Nancy Parker #1 (1963) was the first in a projected series about famous real-life lovers.

Unfortunately, the romance anthology book was cancelled after the second issue...

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!

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FAST WILLIE JACKSON "Happy Birthday, Frankie"

Here's an example of love gone wrong...

...in this never-reprinted story from the very hard-to-find Fast Willie Jackson #1 (1976).

Illustrated by Gus Lemoine, the script was either by him or publisher/editor Bertam Fitzgerald.

Previously, Gus pencilled shorts and a couple of covers at Archie Comics from 1967 to the mid-1970s.

The Fast Willie books were his final credited work.

(There is a theory that Gus was really Henry Scarpelli, a versatile humor artist who did work for Archie as well as Archie-clone books for both Marvel and DC.

The period when "Gus" was active at Archie was before Scarpelli's credited work appeared there, so...it's like "Gee, Clark, we never see you when Superman's around! Why's that?"

Lois Lane couldn't prove it, either.)

Bertram Fitzgerald was the publisher/editor/writer of Fitzgerald Publications, doing a Black historical comic anthology, Golden Legacy, sold to schools and bookstores.

He conceived Fast Willie as a way to break into the teen comic market on the newsstands.

Two ironic notes:

1) Fitzgerald finally broke even on the series as of it's final issue, #7.

(It has been "in the red" up to that point.)

2) He failed to capitalize on the late 1970s creation of the Direct Market and comic book stores, which could've enabled him to continue publishing the title without the costs and hassle of returnable books.

Though the series has never been reprinted, it has not been forgotten....

...though not an "official" appearance, this brief interlude in Image's Savage Dragon #170 (2011) by Erik Larsen would seem to be a "Where Are They Now?" tip of the hat to the MoCity crew.

As it turns out, Willie is a distant uncle of the comic's title character...

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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featuring the cover art from all four HTF issues
on kool kollectibles!

ROMANTIC ADVENTURES "Bewitching Buccaneer"

Swashbucking rogues have always been objects of romantic desire...

...as this tale featuring a sea-going scalliwag in the Errol Flynn/Tyrone Power mold proves!

Romances set in the Old West were a popular sub-genre of both comics and novels in the early 1950s.

In fact there were a number of titles like Range Romances, Golden West, and  CowGirl Romances!

This story from ACG's Romantic Adventures #8 (1950) may have been a test to see if comic readers were interested in historical romance tales set in other time periods.

Since pirates were popular in novels, it was thought they'd sell equally-well in comics.

However, reader response must have been lackluster, since such "historical romances" remained few and far between on the four-color pages.
BTW, Anne Bonny was a real female pirate, and will be the subject of this week's post on our "sister" blog Heroines this Friday, when we re-present the first story in her short-lived comic series!
Written by series editor Richard E Hughes, illustrated by Charles Sultan.

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 out sponsor...

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True Love Comics Tales™

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