Gorilla Daze

Here’s another of the back page ads that ran on the DC romance line during the late-50s/early-60s. Very bright and colourful, with a real sense of presenting the romance titles as a line of unmissable books that you simply must own. If you love one, you’ll love ‘em all kind of thing. Which was probably true, let’s face it: there’s not a whole lot to distinguish one title from another. Note that they push this as the National Romance Group as if to distinguish themselves from the regular comics line — heck there’s not even any mention that these “magazines” are comics!

“The thrill of a kiss… A touch of heartbreak… A moment of love” was there ever a finer way of summing up the romance genre? Well, yes, okay, but we’re being kind here on Gorilla Daze…

Image ©2010 DC Comics

A simple ad that does exactly what’s asked of it. At this point in the early 1960s, the romance line at DC was being treated and sold in a similar manner to those seemingly endless slews of romantic paperbacks from the likes of Mills and Boon. If you bought and liked one, you were sure to like all the others, so here’s a complete list. This kind of ad was s staple of the back covers of these comics for some time. I’m sure it did its job — how could it not? It’s a beautifully simple design.

Image ©2010 DC Comics

By this point (1974) DC’s romance line was on its last legs. And, in a strange twist of fate, the editor was none other than the co-creator of the entire genre: Joe Simon. He didn’t bring anything new with him, just the same old same old, but DC moved the two remaining titles, Young Love and Young Romance, to the 100-page super-spectacular format. While this meant a lot more pages of angst, not a lot of it was new material. The vaults were raided and some 1950s strips were re-run — with haircuts amended to reflect 70s styles. Occasionally you can come across a reprinted John Romita, Sr “classic”, or a Gene Colan perhaps, so these are worth checking out.

The covers were totally mad too, but that was true of all the 100-pagers. The main image was shrunk in favour of a hodge-podge of smaller panels reflecting the contents, and blurbs were the order of the day. Artist Nick Cardy did his best — and I like this one a lot — but he was fighting a losing battle.

Image ©2010 DC Comics

From Girls’ Love Stories #173 (Sept 1972) comes this ad extolling the virtues of DC’s romance line. Now I know the romance stuff is never going to be exceedingly popular with modern audiences — even assuming comics have a modern audience! — but they remain a fascinating document of their times, and sometimes feature some beautiful art. Not often, admittedly, but just enough to make ploughing through a load of them worth while. And, if nothing else, they showcase solid storytelling where the artist is forced to make page after page of talking heads look interesting — no mean feat.

Not sure of the artist here. Bob Oksner perhaps. The inker is Vinnie Colletta.

Images ©2010 DC Comics

Ah, the agony and ecstasy of young love! Sadly, I don’t actually own this issue, so I can’t comment on what’s in it. It’s clearly a bunch of reprints quickly thrown together, as was DC’s wont at that time in the late-60s. Most of the comics line did this sort of thing with alarming regularity — sometimes as often as every three months or so. It’s interesting that this one identifies itself as a Giant Annual. It’s not an annual at all, it’s just issue #69 of the ongoing title, and, as far as I can work out, it was not repeated. There’s a variety of artists on display, including Irv Novick.

Gotta love the little cupids at top and bottom. Now there’s a sight you don’t see on many comics today!

©2010 DC Comics

In a further attempt to appeal to its target audience, DC ramped up the soap opera aspects of its Romance comics in the late-60s. They introduced several serials that ran in each of the titles, with regular characters embroiled in much angst and incident. These were then backed up with the usual anthology mix of short stories. Here’s a nice ad for Secret Hearts, which ran in Falling in Love #100 (July, 1968). “Reach for Happiness” ran for several years, centering around Karen Wilder and her adventures in Danville Corners. It’s the kind of thing that was filling the newspaper strip pages during the 1950s with the likes of Mary Worth, Juliet Jones and Mary Perkins, but was unusual in comics.

©2010 DC Comics