Romance Comics Archives

After entering the genre with the short-lived title Pictorial Love Stories, the series True Life Secrets became Charlton's first successful romance title.  The series would be the publisher's only romance title throughout the early 1950s, until the acquisition of Fawcett's Sweethearts and Romantic Story in 1954.  These and other titles followed, and Charlton became one of[...]

Victor Fox's romance line is largely undiscovered country compared to most comics of that era, but contains material by Kamen, Feldstein, Wood and more.

In March, with her studio film career taking off, photos taken of her for a nude calendar in 1949 became public knowledge, and she leaned into the scandal by admitting to it and saying she had simply needed the money at the time.  The resultant publicity sent her career into overdrive, and she was featured[...]

The Ziff-Davis comic book romance title Cinderella Love was inspired by the enourmous success of the 1950 Disney classic Cinderella.

Contains 132 pages of remaindered Fox romance comics Overstreet 2023 FN 6.0 value = $222. Fox Giants: Love Thrills #nn (Fox Features Syndicate, 1950) Condition: GD Contains 132 pages of remaindered Fox romance comics minus the covers Rated a Gerber "6" or "uncommon" on the Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books' Scarcity Index Featured in our article[...]

Best remembered for what is arguably the most notorious comic book title in American comic book history, Crime Does Not Pay, publisher Lev Gleason also put out material ranging from superhero titles like Daredevil to romance comics like Lovers' Lane Gleason started his career in 1931 with Open Road for Boys magazine before moving on[...]

John Buscema did significant work for publisher Orbit from 1950 to 1953, including several covers for their romance comic book line.

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. Young Romance Comics #12 (Prize, 1949) According to Joe Simon's second biography, Joe Simon: My Life in Comics, Simon and Kirby believed in the title so much that they were[...]

G.I. Sweethearts #37 is another unusual fusion of Cold War espionage and romance, featuring the then recently-revealed atomic cannon.

Dear Lonely Heart #1 is a rare romance comic launched by publisher Comic Media, who became notorious for its Pre-Code comic book titles.

But after the war, they also invented the American romance comic, the success of which spawned an industry that dominated for a decade. My Date Comics ran from July 1947 to January 1948, was the first in the "romance humour" sub-genre of romance comics that mainly concerned Swifty Chase, a lovestruck athlete who competed with rival[...]

All True Romance #11 features some of Pete Morisi's best work for Comic Media, an unusual Don Heck story, and a mix of the romance and crime genres.

"ACG's brief flirtation with grim, sensationalistic stories remains one of the great mysteries of comic book history," noted Michelle Nolan in her indispensable Love on the Racks: A History of American Romance Comics.  We've already covered two of the issues from that "brief flirtation", Romantic Adventures #49 and #50, and Confessions of the Lovelorn #52[...]

Comics Media, remembered for Pre-Code titles like Horrific and War Fury, brought twists to romance in Dear Lonely Hearts with Don Heck and Pete Morisi.

Youthful Hearts 1 features an overlooked drug addiction story "Monkey on My Back" that precedes the better-known "The Monkey" in Shock SuspenStories 12.

Sweethearts.  Quality put more than the usual effort into making these themes authentic.  For example, the best story from Broadway Romances #1, Thief of Hearts, features an NYPD detective on the trail of Broadway ticket scalpers, who ends up finding romance in an unexpected place.  The writers for this issue are unknown, but it's not[...]

The series lasted five seasons from 1953 to 1957. The Dell comic book series bears no resemblance to the television show beyond starring a private secretary.  It features completely different characters in a very serious and rather hard-edged romantic drama.  The only thing in Private Secretary #1 that even slightly resembles comedy is the fact that[...]

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[...]

Toby Press published just one issue of Sorority Secrets #1 during the 1950s comic book romance boom. But what's inside?

Hughes' American Comics Group.  Similar to the long-running horror title Adventures into the Unknown, which against all odds was able to thread a needle through the Comics Code era and last from 1948 to 1967, the publisher's long-running Romantic Adventures (eventually renamed My Romantic Adventures) lasted for 138 issues from 1949 to 1954.  Romantic Adventures[...]

Harry Anderson (1911-1972) was a prolific and underappreciated comic book artist working from 1939 to 1955.  He began his career as a ghost artist for the newspaper comic strip Robin Hood and Company for the Toronto Telegram.  In comics, he worked a wide range of publishers, early on via the Binder, Chesler, and Funnies Inc[...]

Riding high in the wake of their debut romance title Sweethearts, Fawcett launched a staggering nine romance titles in 1949 including Life Story, Cowboy Love, Exciting Romances, Love Memories, Romantic Story, Romantic Western, Sweetheart Diary, True Confidences, and Romantic Secrets.  Fawcett became the #1 publisher of comic book romance that year, with all of those[...]

Debuting a year after Simon & Kirby's Young Romance, Marvel's My Romance was the second comic book romance title to hit the newsstands.

Hollywood Secrets #1 is one of the rarer books of the recent romance comics I've written about for this auction at Heritage Auctions Featuring a Bill Ward cover, this is a book that didn't have a giant print run in the first place and now is even harder to find in any kind of good[...]

Young Romance #12 is one of those "must-have" old romance comics It is an all-time romance comic cover, featuring art by icons Joe Simon and Jack Kirby I have actually read this one We got in a coverless copy at the shop I work at a few years ago, and these comics had a certain[...]

Part of Prize's influential romance comics line, produced by the studio of Captain America creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Issue #22 on cover; Vol 3, issue #4 in indicia Honey goes to pieces when Dolly steals Jim away from her Marcia is ashamed of Cal's hillbilly family Terry decides to butt in when she[...]

Some of the company's painted comic book covers were reused from its paperback line, but the cover of its first romance comic book, Frontier Romances #1, is an interesting exception.  This painting by Gloria Stoll Karn had appeared on Popular Publications' Rangeland Romances just a few months before this use by Avon.  While it's unknown[...]

With his interior work at St. John halted, romance comics legend Matt Baker tried out a number of other publishers including Charlton.

Myron Fass draws a story in rare romance comic Romantic Love #5 from publisher Avon in 1951.

Comic book artist Ross Andru had a lengthy career ranging from 1950s romance comics to Wonder Woman, Flash, Spider-Man, and much more.