YOUNG ROMANCE

In one way or another, romance has been part of the comic book scene since the comics became a mass medium. Everysuperhero had a so-called "love interest". TheArchie-style teen comics were largely about the adolescent take on the mating game. Even the gangsters inCrime Does Not Pay and its ilk had molls. But it wasn't until 1947 that romance became the main focus of a comic book. For the fact that the genre got into comics at all, we can thank the extraordinary team of …

As the story goes, Simon and Kirby got the idea by simply looking at a newsstand and noting how many "true confession" magazines the market seemed to be sustaining. They reasoned any genre that popular ought to be able to support a comic book or two, provided the comics were visually appealing and had solid, engaging stories — and since their studio happened to be an industry leader in packaging comic books of that description, they simply made one.

There had been a few gropings in that direction, including Simon and Kirby's ownMy Date, published by Hillman Periodicals (most famous forAirboy andThe Heap) starting with a July, 1947 publication date. But that one was mostly aimed at the teen humor market. The first actual romance comic, aimed at grown-up readers interested in stories about grown-up emotions, wasYoung Romance #1, dated Sept-Oct. 1947. Simon and Kirby's company published it in partnership with Crestwood Publications (also known as Prize Comics). A blurb on the cover said it was "For the moreadult readers of comics".

Simon and Kirby had been responsible forThe Newsboy Legion,Boy Commandos,Captain America and many other successful and highly regarded comics features, so it's not surprising this one was a success as well. But themagnitude of its success took everyone off guard. They'd started out writing and drawing it almost entirely on their own, because there was no money in the till for assistants. But within months, they'd tripled its printrun and doubled its frequency, and were gearing up to make romance comics a minor industry. Their first companion title,Young Love, was on the stands less than a year and a half later.

And so were dozens of other romance titles, from practically every publisher in the business.Quality Comics hadLove Confessions,Marvel hadRomance Tales,Fawcett Publications hadTrue Stories of Romance,Fox Feature Syndicate hadMy Love Secret … Not sinceSuperman had comic books fielded anything that was imitated so much, so fast. And for the first time, comic books were attracting a significant female readership.

In style, Simon and Kirby (and hence their followers) took the lead of the "true confession" magazines that had inspired them. Stories were generally told in the first person, making the emotions more immediate and enhancing verisimilitude (which was further enhanced after a couple of years, by replacing cover drawings with photographs). The stories weren't extremely steamy at first, but did deal with all the complications that could make a melodrama out of love — infidelity, separation, jealousy, etc. As time went on, the romance comics delved more deeply into these aspects, and became quite steamy indeed — even, in some cases, overtly sexy. They never went in for pin-up style sex, like some contemporary comics aimed at boys (tho their heroines were usually quite attractive), but hinted very strongly at what were called "adult situations".

Meanwhile, Simon and Kirby prospered in their partnership with Crestwood/Prize — at least until the mid-1950s, when the whole field suffered badly from a nationwide anti-comics movement (fueled partly by politicians and other fearmongers, and partly by the fact that many of the comics actually were pretty offensive). Love comics weren't hit as badly as horror or crime comics, but they had their share of objectionable elements — besides, objectionable or not, comics were suffering across the board.

The partnership lasted until the end of the decade, tho, and then they went their separate ways. Simon went on to createPrez andBee-Man, Kirby went on to createNew Gods andDevil Dinosaur (among others), and Prize Comics wound up withYoung Romance andYoung Love. The company got out of the comic book business in 1963 and sold those titles toDC Comics, where they became part of a reasonably popular romance line aimed at young girls.

The romance genre waned as female readership drifted away from comic books — or was it the other way around? In any case, DC's love comics, tho among the most tenacious in the business, faded from view by the mid-1970s.Young Romance lasted 208 issues altogether. The last one was dated Nov-Dec. 1975.

— DDM

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