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

Matt Baker and the Last True Love, Up for Auction

St. John's True Love Pictorial #11 from 1954 is the last issue of the series, but it features an absolutely scorching Matt Baker romance cover.

St. John Publishing's True Love Pictorial appears to have been one of the early casualties of Archer St. John's low tolerance for bad publicity. In reputational terms, 1954 was arguably the worst year in American comic book publishing history, and it was indisputably the peak of the comic book moral panic of the era.  A United States Senate Subcommittee held hearings about comic books' impact on children.  Fredrick Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent was published.  The Comics Code Authority was formed.  Newspapers were filled with incendiary articles about the supposed dangers of crime, horror, and even romance comic books.

The early example of St. John's low tolerance for risk to his company's reputation came when he put Authentic Police Cases on hold for 18 months the moment it got some bad publicity.  As bad as 1948 was for comic book moral panic, 1954 was much worse, and St. John responded accordingly.   The entire St. John romance line contents were changed to reprints with new covers beginning June 1954, as was Authentic Police Cases and at least some of the rest of the non-humor line.  The horror title Nightmare was changed to the more conservative Amazing Ghost Stories.  Similarly, the title of Teen-Age Temptations was toned down to Going Steady. Romance titles Pictorial Romances and True Love Pictorial were ended.  The Approved Comics title became a test bed for a variety of material, including titles acquired from Ziff-Davis. Overall, St. John appears to have been preparing his company to roll with the changing tides of 1954 and beyond.

While a Matt Baker cover paired with at least one interior feature by Baker proved a potent excellent formula at St. John throughout much of his tenure there, his covers from 1954-1955 are unique.  In keeping with St. John's apparent overall strategy, Baker's last interior artwork on the St. John comic book line hit newsstands in early April 1954.  From there on, he was representing other artists' interior stories, from which he seemed to be working from loose descriptions or perhaps with editorial instructions to do what it took to sell the story on the cover.  He seems more free to tell the stories how he wanted to tell on these late-era St. John covers.

As we've seen with Cinderella Love, the reprint era often led to cover/interior scheduling mistakes, and this True Love Pictorial #10 cover is a clear match for the interior story Pathway to Paradise from issue #10.  But this cover by Baker is a scorcher and perhaps an example of what he could do with more editorial latitude.  One of the best St. John romance Matt Baker covers, there's a copy of the last issue of True Love Pictorial up for auction in the 2024 July 18 The Matt Baker Comics Showcase Auction #40267 at Heritage Auctions.

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