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Romance comics is agenre ofcomic books that were most popular during theGolden Age of Comics. The market for comics, which had been growing rapidly throughout the 1940s, began to plummet after the end ofWorld 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 byJoe Simon andJack Kirby with theCrestwood Publications titleYoung Romance.
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 aswar,Western,science fiction,crime,horror and romance comics.[1] The genre took its immediate inspiration from the romance pulps; confession magazines such asTrue Story; radio soap operas, and newspapercomic strips that focused on love, domestic strife, and heartache, such asRex Morgan, M.D. andMary Worth.[2]Teen humor comics had romantic plots before the invention of romance comics.[3]
Simon and Kirby'sYoung 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 asQuality 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 inNewsdealer 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 byJack Miller, who also wrote many stories.[8] (Later, a number of female editors oversaw DC's romance line, includingZena Brody[9] andDorothy 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 producedGirls' Love Stories,Girls' Romances, andSecret Hearts on a bi-monthly basis through late 1957, when those three titles along withFalling 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 theFawcett Comics line, which includedSweethearts,Romantic Secrets, andRomantic 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 includedTony Abruzzo,Matt Baker,Frank Frazetta,Everett Kinstler,Jay Scott Pike,John Prentice,John Romita, Sr.,Mike Sekowsky,Leonard Starr,Alex Toth, andWally Wood.[14] Romance comics were relatively welcoming to women artists; notable female artists of the 1950s included Alice Kirkpatrick,Valerie Barclay,Ruth Atkinson andAnn Brewster.[15]
In his bookSeduction 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 theComics 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, andCharlton 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 ofYoung Romance andYoung Love in the middle 1970s.[13][14][19]
Charlton and DC artist and editorDick 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 ComicsRenegade Romance,[22]Dark Horse Comics'manga-style adaptations ofHarlequin novels,[23][24] and long-running serials such asStrangers 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]
Pop artistRoy Lichtenstein derived many of his best-known works from the panels of romance comics:
| 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 intoThe 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 |
Comics historian John Benson collected and analyzedSt. John Publications' romance comics inRomance Without Tears (Fantagraphics, 2003), focusing on the elusive comics scripter Dana Dutch, and the companion volumeConfessions, Romances, Secrets and Temptations: Archer St. John and the St. John Romance Comics (Fantagraphics, 2007). To research the 1950s era of romance comics, Benson interviewedRic Estrada,Joe Kubert andLeonard Starr, plus several St. John staffers, including editorIrwin Stein, production artistWarren Kremer and editorial assistant Nadine King.
In 2011, an anthologyAgonizing 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 entitledYoung Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's 1940s-'50s Romance Comics, edited byMichel Gagné.
Romance comics in theUnited Kingdom also flourished in the mid-1950s with such weekly titles asMirabelle (Pearson),Picture Romances (Newnes/IPC),Valentine (Amalgamated Press), andRomeo (DC Thomson). All four titles lasted into the 1970s. Other British romance comics includedMarilyn (1955–1965),New Glamour (1956–1958),Roxy (1958–1963),Marty (1960–1963), andSerenade (1962–1963); all of which eventually merged intoValentine andMirabelle (Valentine itself merged intoMirabelle in 1974).[a]
In 1956–1957DC Thomson launched a line of monthly romance titles:Blue Rosette Romances,Golden Heart Love Stories,Love & Life Library, andSilver Moon Romances. In April 1965, all four titles were merged into the single weeklyStar 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 toStar Love Stories in Pictures in 1976, lasted until 1990.[41]
Thephoto comic romance titlesPhoto Love andPhoto Secret debuted in 1979 and 1980 respectively. They both eventually merged into another publication.
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