A Selection of Fine Romance Comic Book Covers
Thursday, 3. May 2007, 16:09:07
PAUL:From now on you can only think of Roy Litchenstien when you look at those 50s romance covers. It is so part of our cultural conciousness now that it is easy to slip in to the jokey irony these covers provide.
But that 70s cover is a bit harder to take in 2007....probably a sign there is something waiting to be mined there. There is something downright dangerous about that cover, so different from the safety of the 50s.
BILL:Yea, I see what you mean. I set those bottom two covers last simply because I could tell they were done later (I'd like to say I can see it the drawing style only, but also the price of the comics is 20 cents, meaning the 70's). The next to last title is from Carlton, one of the better houses outside the big two, but I never did like them since I was into the more polished look of the Marvel and DC titles as a youngster. Too bad. The swinging cover you comment on is from DC, the houes that also did Superman and Batman. They and Marvel came into the romance titles a little late but they were popular for a time as they were marketed well (and DC and Marvel could market and it is why they have survived very successfully to this day) to coincide with the teenage girl pinup magazines of the day that featured Donny Osmond, Bobbie Sherman, David Cassidy, Leif Garrett and all those androgynous heart throbs of the mid-70's. When the whole Teen Beat Magazine thing waned Marvel and DC let all their romance titles disappear with little notice.
The truth is these titles have become some of the most valuable and collectable in the whole comic book culture. Maybe girls did not save comics as long as boys, boys never bought these titles and so on... so they have become extremely rare and the art has become somewhat iconic in a Jungian archtype fashion.
And you are really keen on your social observations that I tend to miss. I can never see the forest for the trees, but there is most definintly a loss of innocence in that cover that you do not see in the "Lichenstenish" covers of the 50"s and early 60's. Of course these types of stories just do not exist in the social psyche anymore. These things will soon become like the Dead Sea Scrolls and will be archaic glimpses into what our culture was like long ago before language and customs and desires have fully changed, evovled or mutated in what it is they are becoming. God, it is chilling!
WIDGETIZE
Anonymous # 3. May 2007, 19:21
From now on you can only think of Roy Litchenstien when you look at those 50s romance covers. It is so part of our cultural conciousness now that it is easy to slip in to the jokey irony these covers provide.
But that 70s cover is a bit harder to take in 2007....probably a sign there is something waiting to be mined there. There is something downright dangerous about that cover, so different from the safety of the 50s.
Bill Courtney # 5. May 2007, 16:33
And you are really keen on your social observations that I tend to miss. I can never see the forest for the trees, but there is most definintly a loss of innocence in that cover that you so not see in the "Lichenstenish" covers of the 50"s and early 60's. Of course these types of stories just do not exist in the social psyche anymore. These things will soon become like the Dead Sea Scrolls and will be archaic glimpses into what our culture was like long ago before language and customs and desires changed, evovled or mutated in what it is they are becoming. God, it is chilling!
Anonymous # 7. May 2007, 23:37
Wow, I did not know those romance comics were so rare.