Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Matt Baker, Romance Comics

The DC Comics Romance of Girls' Love Stories, up for Auction

DC Comics' underappreciated first romance comics title included work by Matt Baker, Alex Toth, Carmine Infantino, John Romita and more.

Published Thu, 01 Feb 2024 15:32:06 -0600

by Mark Seifert

Last updated Fri, 01 Mar 2024 00:09:20 -0600

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The modern romance magazine had been a staple of American newsstands for decades by the time comic books entered the arena with Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's Young Romance in 1947. The romance magazine as we know it today (or at least, as we knew it for nearly a century) was popularized by the success of Bernarr Macfadden's True Story beginning in 1919. Street & Smith jumped into the fray in 1921 with Love Story Magazine, while Fawcett Publications launched True Confessions in 1922. In the wake of Simon & Kirby's Young Romance, comic book publishers flooded into the field the next year, largely following the patterns of their magazine counterparts. DC Comics' first true romance title came in 1949 with Girls' Love Stories, a series that would ultimately last nearly 25 years through 180 issues. There are a number of issues of Girls' Love Stories up for auction in the 2023 October 26 – 27 Romance Comics Featuring L. B. Cole Showcase Auction #40224 at Heritage Auctions.

Girls' Love Stories #40 (DC Comics, 1956).

Romance titles are often underappreciated by collectors, and typically contain work by some of the greats of the era in question. The issues of Girls' Love Stories on offer in this listing include work by Matt Baker, Alex Toth, Carmine Infantino, John Romita, Bernard Sachs, Mike Sekowsky, and Arthur Peddy among others. The romance comics field would quickly boom throughout the late 1940s and beyond. The same year that DC Comics jumped into the genre, Time Magazine would trumpet Fawcett's success in entering the comic book romance field while noting that genre pioneer Macfadden's financial returns suffered because they had failed to do the same. DC would eventually launch some 40 romance title over the course of several decades. There are a number of issues of Girls' Love Stories up for auction in the 2023 October 26 – 27 Romance Comics Featuring L. B. Cole Showcase Auction #40224 at Heritage Auctions.