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

The Pretty Danger of Matt Baker's Secrets of True Love #1, at Auction

Secrets of True Love is the very last Romance comic book released by St. John Publications, and is part of an interesting Matt Baker mystery.

Secrets of True Love #1 is 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. Somewhat famously, it also seems to be a different take on his cover for Wartime Romances #17 from 1953.  Part of the end-game St. John Publishing comic book era that was packaged by Al Fago, Secrets of True Love #1, Atom-Age Combat #1 and Li'l Ghost #1 are the last comic books St. John ever published. Aside from the mystery behind it, Secrets of True Love #1 is an incredibly rare comic book, and it appears that this Secrets of True Love #1 (St. John, 1958) CGC VG- 3.5 Off-white pages is the only CGC-graded copy that has ever come up for public auction.  There's also a copy of the other version of this cover on Wartime Romances #17 (St. John, 1953) Condition: GD up for auction in the 2023 August 17 The Matt Baker Comics & Comic Art Showcase Auction #40233 at Heritage Auctions.

How this cover version came to be published by St. John in 1957 likely involves Al Fago and perhaps even Ray Osrin, but the circumstances leading up to this single-issue title ultimately start 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.  However, Archer St. John seemed to have prepared the company's comic line to survive the moral panic era and the Comics Code transition by converting his romance line and Authentic Police Cases into reprint series with new Baker covers in early 1954.  St. John then took 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.  In 1953, St. John had set up a Beverly Hills office under Disney animator and cartoonist George Crenshaw, with the apparent intent of getting West Coast animation industry artists to work on the likes of the Terry-Toons comic books.

Meanwhile, regular Matt Baker inker Ray Osrin immediately started getting work at Charlton via then-editor/packager Al Fago when Osrin and Baker's St. John interior story work dried up in early 1954.  Osrin and Baker had done a lot of work together up to that time, so it's an as-yet unsolved mystery exactly why Baker didn't pick up work from Charlton at that point as well (although he did get work at Charlton later via Vince Colletta).  Although Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour quotes Osrin as saying that Charlton "was despised and loathed by everyone."

There is at least one unaccounted-for Baker/Osrin story at Charlton during this period in Sweethearts #27, which does not appear to have been previously published. However, it's unclear whether this came about via Osrin, or if Al Fago acquired it from St. John's inventory (much of the rest of the issue was material acquired from Fawcett and Fox). Just as Archer St. John was converting the romance line and Authentic Police Cases to reprints, he also sold his title Fightin' Marines to Charlton, where Al Fago Studios packaged it during this period. It appears that Charlton and/or Fago likely also acquired an unpublished Little Al of the Secret Service story from St. John (who had acquired it from Ziff-Davis) around this time as well.

As the comic book industry pushed into the post-Code era, St. John Publications' comic publishing operation wound down substantially shortly after Archer St. John's death. 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.

Al Fago, who had just had a falling out with Charlton, then started working with St. John Publications in what seems to have been an attempt to re-start their comics line.  St. John returned to the comics newsstands with a small burst of new title attempts for November 1957 cover-dated issues, which quickly ended with the final St. John comics cover-dated February 1958: Li'l Ghost #1, Secrets of True Love #1, and Atom-Age Combat #1. In total, this attempted revival consisted of nine issues across six different titles and lasted for three months. They were an assortment of remixes of some titles that Fago had packaged at Charlton, the return of the St. John title Atom-Age Combat, and the mysterious Secrets of True Love.

After this last gasp of St. John's comic line, Al Fago briefly continued Atom-Age Combat and Li'l Ghost by launching his own publishing company, Fago Magazines.  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.

It's possible that Fago acquired it during his 1955 connection with St. John at Charlton which resulted in the continued Fightin' Marines title and associated inventory, or perhaps he managed to connect with Baker briefly during the publication of the Sweethearts #27 story by Baker and Osrin.  Given that Fago appears to have packaged all the final-era St. John material on his own via his former Charlton associations, it's less likely that he acquired it from the St. John offices in 1957.

However this artwork 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 this Secrets of True Love #1 (St. John, 1958) CGC VG- 3.5 Off-white pages is the only CGC-graded copy that has ever come up for public auction.  There's also a copy of the other version of this cover on Wartime Romances #17 (St. John, 1953) Condition: GD up for auction in the 2023 August 17 The Matt Baker Comics & Comic Art Showcase Auction #40233 at Heritage Auctions.

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