Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Matt Baker, St. John Publications

Death and the Last Romance: Matt Baker's Secrets of True Love #1

Secrets of True Love #1 is an unusual and very rare comic book. This issue, Atom-Age Combat #1 and Li'l Ghost #1 are the last comic books St. John Publications ever published.  It's also of course the last of the once-great St. John romance line, and the last St. John comic book cover attributed to Matt Baker by a very wide margin.  And somewhat famously, it seems to be a different take on his cover for Wartime Romances #17 from 1953.  Aside from the mystery behind it, Secrets of True Love #1 is an incredibly rare comic book, and this Secrets of True Love #1 (St. John, 1958) Condition: VG- available in the 2022 August 11 The Matt Baker Showcase Auction #40190 is the first copy of the issue that Heritage Auctions has ever sold.

The circumstances that led to this single-issue title require some unpacking, but it ultimately starts here: On August 13, 1955, St. John Publications owner Archer St. John was found dead in the apartment of a former Powers model, with the NY Daily News proclaiming, "A couple of shadowy West Side characters, a man and a woman, suspected of feeding dope pills to magazine publisher Archer St. John, were being hunted last night by detectives investigating St. John's mysterious death in the penthouse apartment of a former Powers model."

The company came under the control of Archer's son, Michael St. John, with the help of St. John Publications general manager Richard E. Decker.  According to the account of artist Lou Cameron as related in Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour, Michael St. John cleaned house at the company, and Baker was let go.  Interestingly, Archer St. John seemed to have prepared the company's comic line to survive the Comics Code transition brilliantly earlier that year, by taking over several properties from United Features for comics publication, such as Fritzi Ritz, Nancy and Sluggo, and Tip Top Comics.  A Jackie Gleason licensed title had been added alongside the successful ongoing Abbott and Costello series.  The Terry-Toons properties were still a pillar of the publisher's comics line.

Meanwhile, St. John experimented in the magazine field throughout the early 1950s to varying success.  Notable to Baker collectors is the 1953-era pulp digest monthly Manhunt, which contains Baker illustrations.  And in late 1955, Baker's work appeared in the debut issue of the St. John "Playboy clone" men's magazine Nugget.

However, the notion that Michael St. John cleaned house in the immediate aftermath of his father's death appears to be inaccurate. The last issues of Diary Secrets, Cinderella Love, and Going Steady all hit the newsstand before Archer St. John died.  Teen-Age Romances #45, the title's final issue with a copyright / on-sale date of October 1, 1955 had a cover that was almost certainly assigned to Baker prior to Archer St. John's death.  And in reality, the entire romance line contents had consisted of reprints with new covers since June 1954, as did Authentic Police Cases and at least some of the rest of the non-humor line. It's pretty clear that in the wake of the 1954 Senate Subcommittee hearings that covered the comic book industry, St. John decided to proceed with caution. In fact, it appears likely that he drastically curtailed interior story assignments as the hearings commenced in April 1954.  It was that decision that eventually radically changed the fate of the St. John comic book line. Matt Baker's last new interior art for St. John comics appeared in June 1954 cover-dated issues.    He certainly saw the writing on the wall here long before St. John's August 1955 death, at least in terms of the publisher's comics line.

This said, the St. John Publications' comic publishing operation did wind down substantially shortly after Archer St. John's death. Rather stunningly and in what was the biggest blow to the company, it appears that St. John's death resulted in the immediate loss of the Terry-Toons license, which was then picked up by Pines.  The Universal Features comics lasted until the July 1957 cover-dated issues and were then taken over by Dell.  Everything else was gone by then, and the St. John comic line went on a four-month hiatus.  It returned with a small burst of new title attempts for November 1957 cover-dated issues, which quickly ended with the final St. Johns comics cover-dated February 1958: Li'l Ghost #1, Secrets of True Love #1, and Atom-Age Combat #1.

Of course, Atom-Age Combat had been a revival of the 1952/1953 St. John title of that name.  Al Fago was packaging/editing the St. John comic line during this post-Archer St. John era, and he briefly continued Atom-Age Combat and Li'l Ghost using his Fago Magazines publishing company.  The fact he did not attempt to continue Secrets of True Love may imply that it sold poorly.   Certainly, the 1958 St. John Atom-Age Combat #1 is anecdotally a fairly common comic book for its era by way of comparison.

While it's pretty clear that the cover of Secrets of True Love #1 is an alternate take on the cover of Wartime Romances #17, how it came to be published by St. John in 1958 (it actually hit the newsstands in December 1957) is a bit of a mystery.  Baker's comic book assignments from St. John had trickled off over two years prior and it's extremely unlikely he submitted it to St. John after that.  But it's also clear that this cover was not inked in 1953 along with its Wartime Romances #17 companion.  While there's conflicting data about whether Baker had an office at St. John during this time, presuming he was a freelancer, a penciled cover submitted and rejected before passing it off to the inker would likely have been retained by Baker to perhaps rework and submit again somewhere else down the road. Still, it's not hard to imagine this piece in some form kicking around the office for whatever reason. But however it ended up on Secrets of True Love #1, it seems likely that the published piece also had post-Comics Code revisions.  The scene takes place in a coffee shop or diner rather than in a bar with the sailors drinking liquor, which seems unlikely to have been Baker's original intent, given the context of the previously published version.  And the style of the woman's dress has been made much more conservative.

The rarity and mystery of Secrets of True Love #1 provides us with a nice little hook into St. John Publications' final days, and you have a rare chance to get a Secrets of True Love #1 (St. John, 1958) Condition: VG- up for auction in the 2022 August 11 The Matt Baker Showcase Auction #40190 at Heritage Auctions. New to collecting Matt Baker or want to learn more?  Bleeding Cool is doing an ongoing deep dive into the history behind Matt Baker's comic book artwork in the run-up to this auction. If you've never bid at Heritage Auctions before, you can get further information, you can check out their FAQ on the bidding process and related matters.

Secrets of True Love #1 (St. John, 1958) Condition: VG-. A very rare book — this is the first copy we've seen in our 22 years of comic auctions. The last romance issue St. John ever published, this is from February 1958, the company's last month of publishing comic books, period. By the way the scene is. Matt Baker drew the cover, a toned-down reworking of the scene from Wartime Romances #17. Overstreet 2022 VG 4.0 value = $64.

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