ADVENTURES IN ROMANCE "September Squall"

Now that it's September...

...here's a tale for the final weekend of warm weather that really fits the concept of a "beach read'!

You'll note a couple of two-page spreads at the beginning of the story.
St John's Adventures in Romance #1 (1949), experimented with doing double-page spreads to establish a distinctive "look".
Sadly, it only lasted two issues.  ;-(

The painted cover art (by the story's artist, Warren King) was based on the final panel of the story.
While other comics publishers used painted covers on their romance comics, most of those were re-used pulp or paperback paintings which were unrelated to the interior stories!
Artist Warren King spent several years in comic books doing everything from superheroes to horror to romance, before moving into newspaper cartooning, becoming the in-house editorial cartoonist at the NY Daily News and winning the National Cartoonists Society Best Editorial Cartoonist Award in 1968.
He passed away in 1978.

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...

You can own a kool komic collectible
(t-shirt, mug, tote bag, etc.)

 embellished with the cover art from this week's torrid tale...

 ...by clicking HERE!

ADVENTURES IN ROMANCE "Heels Over Head In Love"

With Labor Day coming up, it's time to ease into Autumn...

...with a story from the short-lived (and never reprinted) St John's Adventures in Romance #1 (1949)!

Written by the prolific Dana Dutch, about whom very little is known, except his extensive list of  comic scripts.
Interestingly, out of 206 identified scripts, over 200 were romance stories, with a smattering of superhero and high adventure!

Illustrated by the versatile Frank Bolle, who's still active in the field today!

Here's his website!

Next week:
We Don't Yet Know What We'll Present!
But We Guarantee That...

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

And now a word from out sponsor..
Support True Love Comics Tales

Please Visit Amazon and Order...

Romance Without Tears
featuring comics stories written by Dana Dutch! 

A MOON, A GIRL...ROMANCE "Summer Love"

Before EC Comics became (in)famous for doing horror and sci-fi comics...

...they covered every genre in comics, including romance!

They just didn't do all of them as well as horror and sci-fi...

Illustrated by "Ghastly" Graham Ingels, this tacky tale from EC's A Moon, A Girl...Romance #11 (1949) is, perhaps, the perfect example of why EC is not known for its' romance comics.

To be fair, that's not quite accurate...EC's post-horror comics title Confessions Illustrated was a first-rate romance b/w graphic magazine (not comic), targeted at the late-teen/young adult audience!

But it didn't sell, and, like the rest of the Picto-Fiction line is incredibly hard to find today!

Next Week:

We don't know yet what we'll present, but we can guarantee...

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...

EC Complete Picto-Fiction Library

(includes all 3 issues of Confessions Illustrated [including the never-published final issue]

Note: The Confessions Illustrated volume is unavailable separately from the Picto-Fiction set, but the whole set is well-worth it!)

MARVEL ROMANCE REDUX "I Was a Beach Blanket Barbarian!"

Five years after DC did the snarky Truer than True Romance trade paperback...

..which took old romance comics and rewrote them,.Marvel did a mini-series based on the same concept...except it was written entirely by males!
(The DC book was rewritten by a female writer.)
Here's what they did with yesterday's tale.with an interesting combination of both the Jack Kirby/Vince Colletta original and the John Romita Sr-modified/updated version..

Re-written by John Lustig, who had experience doing similar re-writes of Charlton's First Kiss series as Last Kiss.
You can check them out HERE!

Next Week...

We Don't Yet Know What We'll Present, But We DO Know...

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

Please Support True Love Comics Tales

Visit Amazon and Order...

Marvel Romance Redux

TEEN-AGE ROMANCE / OUR LOVE STORY "Summer Must End!"

We're only at the middle of August, not quite at the end of Summer......

Cover art by Jack Kirby and George Klein

...but this tale by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Vince Colletta just screamed to be told (and not for the reason you think)!

PSST!

Wanna know a secret?

This story, which we're presenting from Atlas' Teen-Age Romance #84 (1961) later appeared in Marvel's Our Love Story #9 (1971) in an extremely-modified form!

The art in Our Love Story was retouched by art director John Romita Sr to "update" the hairstyles and some of the fashions, including the swimsuits...

"Why did they do that?" 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 6-12 page lead story and use retouched reprints to fill out the book.

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 romance comics, unlike superhero comics, totally-changed every 5-6 years anyway, and wouldn't notice the "old" plots.
But this wasn't the last time the story would be modified.
As you'll see tomorrow, Marvel could modify more than just the art!

And now a word from out sponsor...

Check out the

True Love Comics Tales™

Comics Collectibles Shop