Amorous Education GOING STEADY "Operation: Save Our Steadies"

Does anybody under 50 even know what "going steady" means?

Basically, it's being in a monogamous (though informal) relationship, usually symbolized by a friendship ring, bracelet, or some other such trinket.

As you can see, it can lead to sitcom-style plot developments, as seen in this never-reprinted story from Prize's Going Steady V3N3 (1960)!

"Going steady" came about during the sexually-repressive 1940s and continued until the 1970s, when sexual exploration (especially in teens and young adults) went mainstream and the practice (at least in the mainstream) died out.

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Agonizing Love
The Golden Age of Romance Comics

Amorous Education & Wedding Bliss CONFESSIONS ILLUSTRATED "High School Bride"

In a total contrast to last week's frivolous flight of fancy...

...here's a totally-serious tale...but with an upbeat ending!

I had said that the only genre the EC Comics crew couldn't handle well was romance.

OK, I was wrong.

This story, and the entire EC Comics Confessions Illustrated series, prove me incorrect.
In their final attempt, after Saddle Romances; A Moon, a Girl, Romance; and Modern Love, they finally got it right!

This particular tale, written by Daniel (Flowers for Algernon) Keyes and illustrated by Jack Kamen, was never published during the series' original run.
It was intended for #3...but the series ended with #2.
It was finally published in a now OOP boxed hardcover edition in 2006 presenting all the EC "Picto-Fiction" titles along with their previously-unpublished final issues!
But it was just reprinted last month as a standalone edition, as you see below.

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EC Archives
Confessions Illustrated
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Amorous Education JETTA OF THE 21st CENTURY "What a Specimen"

To help ease your sad return to school before Labor Day (those of you with an extended school year)...

MORE fun with Dan DeCarlo's Jetta!
The 21st Century isn't what they thought it would be in 1953...

"Leaping Electrodes!"
"Now we're cookin' with uranium!"
"Go atomize yourself!"
"This is simply electronic!"
Why aren't we all talking like this?

This tale from Jetta #6 (which was actually the second issue) was written and penciled by Dan DeCarlo, but it may not have been inked by him.

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Dan DeCarlo's Jetta

Beach Read HONEYMOON OF HORROR "Conclusion - 'Till Death Do You Part""

We Have Already Seen...

...Ellen Drew was always Ellen Drew, not "Mary Cartwright"!

The drugged (and widowed) newlywed was being used by fraudsters hoping to convince a dying old man that she was his (deceased) daughter, whom he'd promised a fabulously-valuable gift upon her marriage!
But, when they looked behind a painting he pointed to, hoping to find his safe, they found...a blank wall!

Wow!

Her real hubby's not even cold in his grave and she's already casting longing glances at another guy?

And I thought serial lover Bonnie Taylor: Airline Stewardess was, as we said back in the day, "loose"!

Writers Sy Reit & Jack Oleck must've had a pretty...interesting view of women!
Trivia: the editor of the book was Dorothy Woolfolk, who started in comics during the Golden Age (1943) and continued to the Bronze Age (1974)!
Besides DC's romance titles, she was also the editor of all three of the publisher's "heroine" books (Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and Lois Lane) for several months in 1972!
So, I'm astonished she'd let that last panel though in this never-reprinted story from DC's Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love #2 (1971).
Here's the original art for the cover...

...a pen and ink (plus gray wash) rendering by Neal Adams, which was photographed through a mezzotint screen, and then had "flat" color added to produced the cover seen above!

Now that's a "Secret of the Painting", eh?

We hope you've enjoyed our annual "beach read" presentation, and will continue to join us each Wednesday for another rarely-seen True Love Comics Tale!

Next Week...
We're Not Yet Certain What We'll Present!
But We Can Guarantee that...
You'll Cry Your Eyes Out If You Miss It!
And now a word from our sponsor...

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Showcase Presents

Secrets of Sinister House

...which reprints the four issues of Sinister House of Secret Love, this book's sister gothic romance title, but in black and white!

Beach Read HONEYMOON OF HORROR "Chapter Three - The Secret of the Painting"

When Last We Left Ellen Drew...I Mean Mary Cartwright...I Mean...

...newlyweds David and Ellen Drew, trying to evade a mysterious car pursuing them through the fog-bound English moors, crash, killing David and rendering Ellen unconscious!

Brought to a nearby house, the delirious Ellen is told by everyone, including a doctor and a woman claiming to be her sister that she's actually Mary Cartwright, engaged to the handsome Edwin Masters...and that she's been suffering delusions that she's already married to someone else!
With constant drugging, she begins to believe it, but a midnight visit by a shadowy figure who address her as "Mrs Drew" compels her to look around the old house, finding another person...an elderly man who calls her "my daughter, Mary"!
Now on her guard (but still being drugged), the next night, our heroine hears a rhythmic noise (like a loud heartbeat), which she traces to the basement to find...

So what's the "Secret of the Painting"...which Edwin has just put his foot through?

And will Ellen live long enough to discover it?

The answers to these and many other questions will be found here, tomorrow!

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 Buy...

Showcase Presents

Secrets of Sinister House

...which reprints the four issues of Sinister House of Secret Love, this book's sister gothic romance title, but in black and white!