Monday, March 23, 2009

In the Spring, a Young Man's Fancy Turns to--Marvel Romance Comics?

Okay, so Marvel touted their Groovy Age romance comicbooks as the comics you buy for your favorite chick--so then why all the Charles Atlas ads, man? (Charlton and DC produced romance mags as well--with more female-friendly ads, and we'll get to 'em eventually--you've been forewarned!) But seriously, did'ja ever wonder what your favorite Marvel Bullpen superstars were doing when they weren't writing and drawing the adventures of Thor, Captain America, Spidey, or Daredevil? You really wanna know? Are you sure? You really, really wanna know? Okay, then, here's the answer, Groove-ophile!

From Our Love Story #2 (September 1969), here's Stan Lee with the double-whammy team of John Buscema and John Romita with "I Love Him, But He's Hers!"

Next up, check out "A Fool About Love" by Holli Resnicoff (Stan's secretary/Mike Ploog's wife), Gene Colan, and Bill Everett from OLS #27 (November 1973)...

And finally, from OLS #28 (actually reprinting the story from OLS #15), here's a real twist--writer Steve Englehart's turn as a romance artist on "One Fleeting Moment--!", written by Gerry Conway and Holli Resnicoff...

Guess that's one way to while away time between Avengers/Defenders Wars and Secret Empire Sagas, huh, Groove-ophiles?


8 comments:

  1. Oh my gawd... Pass the tissues! Thanks, Groove. They were... different!

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  2. Wow....Romita is something else. What a diverse talent! One of the first artists I came to recognize and love! Good stuff....

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  3. That women's lib cover's a weird one. It's Romita, but that guy's face coloured in pink looks more like Colan. In fact, I'd swear it's taken from a photo OF the young Gene Colan!

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  4. The Buscema/Romita team are the Reeces Peanut Butter Cup of silver-age art.Two very different art styles that go great together! Gene Colan's work of course is very nice as well. And who knew Steve Englehart had any drawing chops? His stuff looks as good as any of the other romance comic artists of the time, although I suspect Jack Abel probably picked up some of the slack in the inking.

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  5. Pete,

    I believe that womans' lib cover is actually pencilled by Gene and inked by Romita, with some touch ups in the backgrounds by Marie Severin.

    BTW, Steve Engelhart also wrote a number of romance stories, under the name Anne Spencer.

    I own most of these issues and while many are formulaic, there are a few nice stories and some great art combos not seen elsewhere. Colan/Mooney, Sekowsky/Able, Tuska/Reinman, plus some early work by Jim Starlin.

    Nick Caputo

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  6. I didn't know how you folks would react to this post, but I figured, "what the heck"--I do like to provide variety and little-seen comics, so...

    And Nick is dead on with his info on the Women's Lib cover (notice how I capitalized that? I was a brainwashed child of the 70s, folks, it's really true!). I'll be showcasing some of the little-seen art combos he mentioned in future posts--bet on it!

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  7. I've been looking for the original art to that Buscema/Romita story for YEARS! If anyone has it PLEASE let me know!

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  8. beautiful art, but such a waste of talent , when they could of been doing more of the big hitter stuff!

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Special thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics and Grand Comics Database for being such fantastic resources for covers, dates, creator info, etc. Thou art treasures true!


Note to "The Man": All images are presumed copyright by the respective copyright holders and are presented here as fair use under applicable laws, man! If you hold the copyright to a work I've posted and would like me to remove it, just drop me an e-mail and it's gone, baby, gone.


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