True Love Comics Tales

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

TEEN CONFESSIONS "Perfect Date"

Remember Dating Game?
They're reviving it next week on tv as The Choice.

Let's look a a story about what would later be called a reality show, scripted and illustrated during the original show's heyday in the 1970s...

This tale from Charlton's Teen Confessions #85 (1974) was illustrated by Demetrio Sanchez Gomez with a slightly-different style (and unlike the previous story we presented, he doesn't sign every page!)

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...

Visit our

True Love Comics Tales™

Comics Collectibles Shop

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

COMPLETE ROMANCE "Women to Love" Part 2

Don't freak out!

You didn't miss Part 1!

It's HERE, at our brother blog, Crime & Punishment™!

This is Part 2 of a multi-blog post, telling a cross-genre story over several blogs, encompassing both crime and romance in equal measure with an adult-oriented plotline and lots of violence!

To recap...

Scarlett was an easily-impressed teen when she fell for Rocco Conselmo, a charismatic gangster working his way up the ranks of the Chicago's Prohibition-era underworld.

As her lover became involved in progressively-more dangerous situations, the once-star-struck girl came to realize the life-style she thought was glamorous and exciting was, in fact, sordid and lethal.

And the man she loved was becoming hard and cruel...

This sleazy story continues on Thursday in Seduction of the Innocent™!

The original novel is by Sinclair Drago (aka Harry Sinclair Drago, who also wrote Westerns under the pseudonym "Bliss Lomax".)

Illustrated by Myron Fass.

The comic's scripter/adapter is unknown.

This tale has been reprinted several times in the '40s and '50s, but not since then...until now!

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...

Support Small Business

Visit our

True Love Comics Tales™

Comics Collectibles Shop

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

MOON GIRL "Introducing Moon Girl & the Prince"

Here's a slightly-different love story...

She was the princess of a far-off land, come to America after winning an athletic tournament!
She was super-strong, near-invulnerable, and could fly for short distances!
Equipped with exotic weaponry, she battled evil and constantly rescued her non-super powered boyfriend!
And, she wore a red-yellow-blue costume with a revealing top and VERY short blue shorts!
Sounds like Wonder Woman, doesn't it?
But, it's NOT!
It's MOON GIRL!
"WTF!!!" you may exclaim! "Who's 'Moon Girl'?"
Read on...

Moon Girl appeared in her own title, originally called Moon Girl & the Prince (1947),
co-created by writer Bill Woolfolk and illustrator Sheldon Moldoff.
Note: Woolfolk's first wife, Dorothy Woolfolk, was also a comics writer/editor who worked on, among others, Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, Supergirl, and romance titles at DC Comics!

As of #2, it became just Moon Girl as Prince Mengu disappeared from all but the lead story in each issue.
When #7 came out, it became Moon Girl Fights Crime, the Prince was gone entirely, and the backups became true-crime tales narrated by Moon Girl. The lead stories were still Moon Girl adventures.
Two issues later (#9), the book became a romance title, A Moon, A Girl, Romance! (The final Moon Girl story appeared in the back.)
Finally, as of #13, the book shifted gears into science fiction and became Weird Fantasy!
Curiously, though almost all of EC Comics' output over the years has been reprinted in both comic and book form, AFAIK, Moon Girl has yet to appear, except as a footnote in Weird Fantasy reprints!

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...

Support Small Business

Visit Our

Moon Girl

Comic Collectibles Store

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Dark Shadows: the Movie

It's not a comedy or a spoof...

...though it does have a lot of humor!

We're doing a slightly-different entry this week.
No comic book story, instead, a spoiler-free review of the new Dark Shadows film by Tim Burton.
I watched the original series during it's 1980s late-night re-run on NBC and enjoyed it tremendously.
And while I liked House of Dark Shadows (1970), I didn't care for the Barnabas-less Night of Dark Shadows (1971).
I liked the 1991 prime-time reboot and the way it condensed the original series' plotline up to the first time-travel sequence into it's too-short 1/2 season run.
And I haven't seen the 2004 WB unsold pilot, so I can't comment on it.
I went to a screening on Monday, and was pleasantly-surprised to see how close they did hew to the original show's concepts.

Consider Burton's new flick in the same vein (pun intended) as the recent Star Trek reboot by JJ Abrams.

It takes a helluva lot of plot elements from the original soap (and first feature film), tweaks them a bit, and plays up the fish-out-of water aspect of Barnabas' adjusting to a world almost two hundred years after his own time that they never really dealt with on the soap*.

But, the core story is still the Angelique-Barnabas-Josette/Maggie romantic triangle.
(There's a kool reason you haven't seen a Maggie Evans poster among the individual character posters all over billboards and the Net, but she is in the movie...)

Besides Barnabas the vampire and Angelique the witch, there's a Collins family werewolf (but not who you think) and a Collins family ghost!

In terms of performances, Johnny Depp as Barnabas and Helena Bonham Carter as Dr Hoffman manage to evoke Jonathan Frid and Grayson Hall without being mere imitations of the originals.

The rest of the cast are good as new incarnations of the characters, and there's a cool cameo scene featuring Frid, David Selby, Lara Parker, and Kathryn Leigh Scott with Depp.

If you liked the original show, approach this with an open mind and you'll probably enjoy it.
I did.
*Right before Dark Shadows debuted on ABC, there was a BBC series called Adam Adamant Lives! about an Edwardian-era crimefighter frozen by his nemesis in 1902 and thawed out in the late 1960s.
The show featured lots of culture-shock involving the repressed Adamant adjusting to the Swinging '60s.
While it's still unavailable on American VHS or DVD/Blu-Ray, there are British releases you can get on Amazon and play if you have a region-free DVD player (like me).