Romance comics
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Romance comics is a genre of comic books that were most popular during the Golden Age of Comics. The market for comics, which had been growing rapidly throughout the 1940s, began to plummet after the end of World War II when military contracts to provide disposable reading matter to servicemen ended. This left many comic creators seeking new markets. In 1947, part of an effort to tap into new adult audiences, the romance comic genre was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby with the Crestwood Publications title Young Romance.
History
[edit | edit source]As World War II ended the popularity of superhero comics diminished, and in an effort to retain readers comic publishers began diversifying more than ever into such genres as war, Western, science fiction, crime, horror and romance comics.[1] The genre took its immediate inspiration from the romance pulps; confession magazines such as True Story; radio soap operas, and newspaper comic strips that focused on love, domestic strife, and heartache, such as Rex Morgan, M.D. and Mary Worth.[2] Teen humor comics had romantic plots before the invention of romance comics.[3]
Simon and Kirby's Young Romance debuted in 1947. In the next 30 years, over 200 issues of the flagship romance comic would be produced.[3]
By 1950, more than 150 romance titles were on the newsstands from publishers such as Quality Comics, Avon, Lev Gleason Publications, and National (DC Comics). More than one in four of the comic books released in the first half of that year were romance comics[4] and a graph in Newsdealer magazine for that year showed that women aged 17-25 were reading more comic books than the males.[5] The number of titles was too many for the market to bear; there was a collapse in the last half of1950, followed by a more sustainable revival in the years 1951-56.[6]
Love comic books typically featured several self-contained stories per issue, narrated in the first person by the female protagonist of the story in a confessional style.[7]
The DC Comics romance line was initially overseen by Jack Miller, who also wrote many stories.[8] (Later, a number of female editors oversaw DC's romance line, including Zena Brody[9] and Dorothy Woolfolk.)[10] As author Michelle Nolan writes, "National's romance line was remarkably stable and thus must have sold consistently well. Beginning in 1952, ... the company produced Girls' Love Stories, Girls' Romances, and Secret Hearts on a bi-monthly basis through late 1957, when those three titles along with Falling in Love began to appear eight times per year.... The company picked up a fifth romance title, Heart Throbs, ... after Quality Comics left the business in 1956."[11] By 1970, right before the romance market collapsed, DC had seven romance titles.[12]
Fox Feature Syndicate published over two dozen love comics with 17 featuring "My" in the title—My Desire, My Secret, My Secret Affair, et al.[2]
Charlton Comics published a wide line of romance titles, particularly after 1953 when it acquired the Fawcett Comics line, which included Sweethearts, Romantic Secrets, and Romantic Story. Sweethearts was the comics world's first monthly romance title[13] (debuting in 1948), and Charlton continued publishing it until 1973.
Artists known for their work on romance comics during the period included Tony Abruzzo, Matt Baker, Frank Frazetta, Everett Kinstler, Jay Scott Pike, John Prentice, John Romita, Sr., Mike Sekowsky, Leonard Starr, Alex Toth, and Wally Wood.[14] Romance comics were relatively welcoming to women artists; notable female artists of the 1950s included Alice Kirkpatrick, Valerie Barclay, Ruth Atkinson and Ann Brewster.[15]
Decline and Golden Age demise
[edit | edit source]In his book Seduction of the Innocent (1954), Fredric Wertham argued that romance comics sexualized female characters, stating that many of them used sensual images, such as accentuated breasts and hips, to attract the attention of readers, especially teenage boys, which he saw as a form of premature and inappropriate sexual stimulation.[16]
He also mocked warnings such as “Not Intended For Children,” which, according to him, only increased youthful interest, and satirized figures such as the “super-lover,” the romantic version of superheroes. For Wertham, these magazines were even more boring than detective comics, filled with sentimentality, false feelings, and hypocrisy.[16]
Following the implementation of the Comics Code in 1954, publishers of romance comics self-censored the content of their publications, making the stories bland and innocent with an emphasis on traditional patriarchial concepts of women's behavior, gender roles, domesticity, and marriage.[10] Visually, women became less sexualized and their clothing more modest.[17][18]
When the sexual revolution questioned the values promoted in romance comics, along with the decline in comics in general, romance comics began their slow fade. DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and Charlton Comics carried a few romance titles into the middle 1970s, but the genre never regained the level of popularity it once enjoyed. The era of romance comics came to an end with the last issues of Young Romance and Young Love in the middle 1970s.[13][14][19]
Charlton and DC artist and editor Dick Giordano stated in 2005: "[G]irls simply outgrew romance comics ... [The content was] too tame for the more sophisticated, sexually liberated, women's libbers [who] were able to see nudity, strong sexual content, and life the way it really was in other media. Hand-holding and pining after the cute boy on the football team just didn't do it anymore, and the Comics Code wouldn't pass anything that truly resembled real-life relationships."[13] Comic book artist and historian Trina Robbins points out that the stories were by then edited and written by people who were out of touch with the interests of girls and young women: "the stories, no matter how well-drawn, read as though they were written by clueless forty-five year old men - which they were."[20]
Decades later, romance-themed comics made a modest resurgence with Arrow Publications' "My Romance Stories",[21] Renegade Comics Renegade Romance,[22] Dark Horse Comics' manga-style adaptations of Harlequin novels,[23][24] and long-running serials such as Strangers in Paradise — described by one reviewer as an attempt "to single-handedly update an entire genre with a new, skewed look at relationships and friendships."[25]
In popular culture
[edit | edit source]Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein derived many of his best-known works from the panels of romance comics:
- Crying Girl (1963) — adapted from "Escape from Loneliness," pencilled by Tony Abruzzo[26] and inked by Bernard Sachs,[27] in Secret Hearts #88 (DC Comics, June 1963)
- Crying Girl (1964) — adapted from "Exit Love--Enter Heartbreak!", drawn by Werner Roth and John Romita Sr.[28] in Secret Hearts #88 (DC Comics, June 1963)[29]
- Drowning Girl (1963) — Lichtenstein adapted the splash page from "Run for Love!", illustrated by Tony Abruzzo and lettered by Ira Schnapp, in Secret Hearts #83 (DC Comics, November 1962)[30][31][32]
- Hopeless (1963) — adapted from a panel from the same story, "Run for Love!", artwork by Tony Abruzzo and lettered by Ira Schnapp, in Secret Hearts #83 (November 1962)[33]
- In the Car (sometimes called Driving) (1963) — adapted from a Tony Abruzzo[34] panel in Girls' Romances #78 (DC, September 1961)
- Oh, Jeff...I Love You, Too...But... (1964) — adapted from a panel by Tony Abruzzo[35]
- Ohhh...Alright... (1964) — also derived from Secret Hearts #88 (June 1963)[36]
- Sleeping Girl (1964) — based on a Tony Abruzzo[37] panel from Girls' Romances #105 (October 1964).[38]
- We Rose Up Slowly (1964) — based on a panel from Girls' Romances #81 (January 1962)
Notable romance comics
[edit | edit source]| Title | Publisher | Issues | Publ. dates | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Date with Judy | DC | 79 | 1947–1960 | Combined romance with humor |
| Falling in Love | DC | 143 | 1955–1973 | |
| First Love Illustrated | Harvey | 90 | 1949–1963 | Harvey's only notable romance comic |
| Girls' Love Stories | DC | 180 | 1949–1973 | |
| Girls' Romances | DC | 160 | 1950–1971 | |
| Heart Throbs | Quality/ DC |
146 | 1949–1972 | Acquired from Quality in 1957 |
| I Love You | Charlton | 124 | 1955-1980 | |
| Just Married | Charlton | 114 | 1958-1976 | |
| Love Diary | Charlton | 102 | 1958-1976 | |
| Love Romances | Marvel | 101 | 1949-1963 | |
| Lovelorn/ Confessions of the Lovelorn |
American | 114 | 1949-1960 | |
| Millie the Model | Marvel | 207 | 1945-1973 | Ostensibly a humor title; only a true romance comic from 1963 to 1967 |
| My Date Comics | Hillman | 4 | 1947-1948 | Simon & Kirby; first humor-romance comic |
| My Life: True Stories in Pictures | Fox | 12 | 1948-1950 | Fox's longest-running romance comic — the only one of the company's 17 romance series with the word "My" in the title to last more than 8 issues |
| Patsy Walker | Marvel | 124 | 1945-1965 | Ostensibly a humor title; only a true romance comic in 1964–1965 |
| Romantic Adventures/ My Romantic Adventures |
American | 138 | 1949–1964 | |
| Romantic Secrets | Fawcett/ Charlton |
87 | 1949–1964 | Acquired from Fawcett in 1953 |
| Romantic Story | Fawcett/ Charlton |
130 | 1949–1973 | Acquired from Fawcett in 1954 |
| Secret Hearts | DC | 153 | 1949–1971 | Published at various times by the National (DC) romance imprints Arleigh Publishing Co./Corp. and Beverly Publishing Co. |
| Strangers in Paradise | Abstract Studio | 106 | 1994-2007 | |
| Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane | DC | 137 | 1958–1974 | Ditched the romance angle by c. 1970; eventually merged into The Superman Family |
| Sweethearts | Fawcett/ Charlton |
170 | 1948-1973 | First monthly romance comic; acquired from Fawcett in 1954 |
| Teen Confessions | Charlton | 97 | 1959-1976 | |
| Teen-Age Romances | St. John | 45 | 1949-1955 | |
| Teen-Age Love | Charlton | 93 | 1958-1973 | |
| Young Love | Crestwood/ DC |
199 | 1947–1977 | Acquired from Crestwood in 1963 |
| Young Romance | Crestwood/ DC |
208 | 1947–1975 | Generally considered the first romance comic, created by Simon & Kirby. Acquired from Crestwood in 1963 |
Reprints
[edit | edit source]Comics historian John Benson collected and analyzed St. John Publications' romance comics in Romance Without Tears (Fantagraphics, 2003), focusing on the elusive comics scripter Dana Dutch, and the companion volume Confessions, Romances, Secrets and Temptations: Archer St. John and the St. John Romance Comics (Fantagraphics, 2007). To research the 1950s era of romance comics, Benson interviewed Ric Estrada, Joe Kubert and Leonard Starr, plus several St. John staffers, including editor Irwin Stein, production artist Warren Kremer and editorial assistant Nadine King.
In 2011, an anthology Agonizing Love: The Golden Era of Romance Comics, edited by Michael Barson, was published by Harper Design. In 2012, many of Simon and Kirby's romance comics were reprinted by Fantagraphics in a collection entitled Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's 1940s-'50s Romance Comics, edited by Michel Gagné.
British romance comics
[edit | edit source]Romance comics in the United Kingdom also flourished in the mid-1950s with such weekly titles as Mirabelle (Pearson), Picture Romances (Newnes/IPC), Valentine (Amalgamated Press), and Romeo (DC Thomson). All four titles lasted into the 1970s. Other British romance comics included Marilyn (1955–1965), New Glamour (1956–1958), Roxy (1958–1963), Marty (1960–1963), and Serenade (1962–1963); all of which eventually merged into Valentine and Mirabelle (Valentine itself merged into Mirabelle in 1974).[a]
In 1956–1957 DC Thomson launched a line of monthly romance titles: Blue Rosette Romances, Golden Heart Love Stories, Love & Life Library, and Silver Moon Romances. In April 1965, all four titles were merged into the single weekly Star Love Stories title, with one issue per month maintaining the cover logo from the original companion titles.[40] Star Love Stories, which changed its name to Star Love Stories in Pictures in 1976, lasted until 1990.[41]
The photo comic romance titles Photo Love and Photo Secret debuted in 1979 and 1980 respectively. They both eventually merged into another publication.
See also
[edit | edit source]References
[edit | edit source]Notes
[edit | edit source]- ^ In contrast to romance comics, which were aimed at older teens and young women, the prevalent form of UK comics marketed to females were girls' comics, geared toward younger teens, which also flourished during this period. These weekly comics developed more of a romance angle in the 1980s.[39]
Citations
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- ^ Robbins, Trina (1999). From Girls toGrrrlz. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. p. 54.
- ^ Nolan, Michelle (2018). Love on the Racks: A History of American Romance Comics. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company. pp. 63, 100-02. Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)..
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- ^ Nolan 2008.
- ^ Nolan 2008, p. 202.
- ^ a b c Nolan 2008, p. 30, 210.
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- ^ Nolan, Michelle (2018). Love on the Racks: A History of American Romance Comics. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company. pp. 151-77. Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)..
- ^ Dorothy Barclay, “ ‘New’ Comics to be Out In Week: First ‘Approved’ Issues Put More Clothing on Heroines and Tone Down Violence”, The New York Times, December 29, 1954, p. 8.
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Robbins, Trina (1999). From Girls to Grrrlz. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. p. 70.
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- ^ Robbins, Trina (1999). From Girls to Grrrlz. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. pp. 105-07.
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- ^ Secret Hearts 88 (DC Comics, June 1963)
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- ^ Tony Abruzzo (a), Ira Schnapp (let). "Run for Love!" Secret Hearts, no. 83, p. 1 (Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).). DC Comics.
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- ^ "Star Love Stories," Grand Comics Database. Retrieved March 2, 2021.
- ^ Star Love Stories in Pictures entry, Grand Comics Database. Retrieved March 10, 2021.
Sources
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External links
[edit | edit source]- Young Romance at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on December 18, 2011.
- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- Sequential Crush, a blog "devoted to preserving the memory of romance comic books and the creative teams that published them throughout the 1960s and 1970s"
- Gallery of images of women crying in classic romance comics
