Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Bill Ward, quality comics, Romance Comics

Trapped by a Honeypot in a Communist Country, Flaming Love at Auction

Cold War-era comics collide with romance in Quality's Flaming Love #1, in which Communists attempt to ensnare an industrialist with a honeypot.

At the dawn of the Cold War era, a significant portion of the comic book industry's output shifted from fighting Nazis to fighting Communists.   There is perhaps no more obvious example of this than Marvel's reboot of comics' most famous Nazi, the Red Skull, as a Communist for the brief mid-1950s revival of the core Marvel superheroes.  But with superheroes on the decline during most of this period, this phenomenon primarily manifested itself in different ways, such as with the war comics boom around the time of the Korean War, and the rise of espionage comics.

At Quality Comics, many of Blackhawk's foes became Communist pawns, and U.S. Treasury agent Pete Trask fought a variety of communist foes in his title T-Man.  Even romance comics were not immune to this phenomenon, as the debut of Quality's Flaming Love featured a complex espionage scheme in which a Communist covert agent honeypot attempted to seduce an American industrialist so that the state could control him.

The cover and interior art here is by Bill Ward, a Quality Comics mainstay who is best remembered for the character Torchy.  Ward worked on a number of Quality's romance comics during this period, and it was a genre for which he was well suited. As for Quality itself, the company published 14 short-lived romance titles at its peak, many of which included covers or art by Ward and Reed Crandall., and were generally more sophisticated than the typical romance comic book of the era — not to mention more risque.  Flaming Love #1 is an excellent example of that on both counts, and there's a copy up for auction in the 2024 February 29 – March 1 Golden Age Romance Featuring Fox Comics & Comic Art Showcase Auction #40258.

Flaming Love #1 (Quality, 1949) Condition: FN. We had never seen this book in a higher grade than VG before. Arguably the most collectible Quality Romance title got off to a fine start with Bill Ward cover and art. Overstreet 2023 FN 6.0 value = $165.

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