True Love Comics Tales

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

Amorous Education TIPPY TEEN "Volley Folly"

We've talked about students having crushes on teachers...

...but sometimes it can get waaaaay out of hand!

BTW, note how the colorist didn't follow the description of the gym teacher's hair...

The script from this never-reprinted tale from Tower's Tippy Teen #2 (1966) is a re-use of a previous script for Quality's Candy #37 (1953) by the same writer, Jack Mendelsohn!
(Even the one-shot gym teacher's name is the same in both stories!)

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Archie's Rivals in Teen Comics

1940s-1970s
An Illustrated History

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

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

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

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in a now OOP boxed hardcover edition in 2006 presenting all the EC "Picto-Fiction" titles along with their previously-unpublished final issues!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
Paid Link

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

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

Thursday, August 18, 2022

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!