HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!
By PETER BOSCH
For Valentine’s Day, here’s the tale of a romance comic filled with love, horror, thrills, and chills.
In June 1949, Timely Comics published a new love series. Not that there was anything different about this at the time. You could look at the company’s output and see Love Tales, Our Love, My Love, Molly Manton’s Romances, Love Romances, Lovers and others on the newsstand. As a matter of fact, at one point that year, there were 16 different romance comics from Timely. But Girl Comics was destined to be something apart from the rest.
A young reader’s trip to the newsstand on June 30, 1949, showed the Timely trend, with an abundance of humor titles, Westerns, crime, and romance comics. Superheroes were just about gone: Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch had vanished and Captain America was about to be (metaphorically speaking) put on ice.
So on that day in the Summer of ’49, the very first issue of Girl Comics was placed on the racks. It was like every other such comic before it: man loves woman, but she has eyes for some newcomer, falls for the other guy, gets used by him, and she flies back into the arms of the one, true faithful love of her life).
But that theme only lasted for four issues.
Girl Comics #1 (Oct. 1949) to #4 (June 1950). And, yes, that is Elizabeth Taylor on the cover of #3 (Apr. 1950).
With the fifth issue came unrelenting trouble! While other Timely titles, such as Lovers and My Own Romance, continued on as normal, Girl Comics turned into a crime thriller! Suddenly, those same young women were in great peril in story after story!
Girl Comics #5 (Oct. 1950). Artist unidentified.
The cover for #5 (Oct, 1950) was only the first clue that things were not going to be as they were before. It resembled one of Charles Biro’s Crime Does Not Pay covers, and the female leads in the stories now faced killer spies, the worry of a homicidal maniac, a haunted house’s fearsome ghouls, and a tormenting fellow student.
Where stories used to sport titles such as “I Loved a He-Man!” and “Romance Was My Mistake!”, the revamped Girl Comics boasted “The House of Shadows!”, “The Death Plunge,” “I Was a Murderer’s Daughter,” “The Victim Was Me!”, “Unwanted!”, and “If a Girl Be Mad.”
Girl Comics #5. “The House of Shadows!” Art by Russ Heath. Writer: unknown.
Girl Comics #5. “The Death Plunge.” Art by Joe Maneely. Writer: unknown.
It was all damsels in distress — in lurid circumstances:
Girl Comics #6 (Jan. 1951). Artist unconfirmed.
Girl Comics #7 (Mar. 1951). Artist unconfirmed.
Girl Comics #8 (May 1951). Artist unconfirmed.
Girl Comics #9 (July 1951). Artist unconfirmed.
Girl Comics #10 (Sept. 1951). Artist unconfirmed.
Girl Comics #11 (Nov. 1951). Artist unconfirmed.
Girl Comics #12 (Jan. 1952). Art by Al Hartley.
This experiment lasted through #12 (Jan. 1952), by which time the publisher was called Atlas Comics, and it then returned to normal romance yarns of old in the 13th issue (March 1952), as well as a title change to Girl Confessions.
Girl Confessions #13 (Mar. 1952). Artist unconfirmed.
Girl Confessions #13. “Fatal Error.” Art by Bill Everett. Writer: unknown.
While the scripters of Girl Comics are unknown, the artists who drew the stories included Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, Russ Heath, Chic Stone, George Klein, Mike Esposito, and Bernie Krigstein.
Girl Confessions added a new series of artists, among whom were Carmine Infantino, Ogden Whitney, Jay Scott Pike, Vince Colletta, Sid Greene, Gene Colan, Gil Kane, and Jerry Robinson. The title ended its run with #35 (Aug. 1954) with stories in that issue being about “The Man I’ll Marry,” “Going Steady,” and “Someone to Love!”
Sigh… nice, but definitely not those exciting days of Girl Comics.
—
MORE
— A SIMPSONS Valentine to Golden Age DC Comics. Click here.
— BATMAN & CATWOMAN: The Greatest Valentine’s Cartoon Ever. Click here.
—
13th Dimension contributor-at-large PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, was published by TwoMorrows. (You can buy it here.) A sequel, American Movie Comic Books: 1930s-1970s — From the Silver Screen to the Printed Page, is due in 2025. (You can pre-order here.) Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.
February 15, 2025
Uh…wow….that’s all I can say…
February 15, 2025
I wonder how well the issues with action stories sold. The covers seem a bit convoluted for a casual scan of a newsstand. The scene from “Hideout” sadly was prophetic.