Bill Morrison goes gaga over a classic romance comics cover…
By BILL MORRISON
For several years I’ve been collecting DC romance comics, mostly from the late 1950s and early 1960s, my favorites being those with covers by John Romita Sr. I also love the Marvel romance comics of the late 1960s and early 1970s, also with covers by Romita Sr. and John Buscema. These beautifully designed and illustrated covers by artists who were lauded mostly for their superhero art inspired me to reimagine some of those great romance images with costumed heroes in place of ordinary jilted lovers, two-timing boyfriends, and opportunistic hussies!
This interpretation of Jay Scott Pike’s iconic 1967 Young Romance #150 cover was created as a T-shirt design for the Lexington Comic & Toy Convention. It’s the first in a series of cover homages that will feature your favorite heroes and villains in mushy, awkward situations, just the way you’ve always wanted to see them!
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Dan jumping in here: Dig this bonus, folks! Our Sunday cartoonist Kerry Callen has also traveled this wonderfully kitschy road:
Two fab satires for the price of one! You get your money’s worth here at 13th Dimension!
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Want more MORRISON MONDAYS? Come back next week! Want a commission? See below!
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MORE
— Dig This Incredible INCREDIBLES Tribute to THE NEW TEEN TITANS #1. Click here.
— When THE SIMPSONS Went STERANKO. Click here.
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Eisner winner Bill Morrison has been working in comics and publishing since 1993 when he co-founded Bongo Entertainment with Matt Groening, Cindy Vance and Steve Vance. At Bongo, and later as Executive Editor of Mad Magazine, he parodied the comics images he loved as a kid every chance he got. Not much has changed.
Bill is on Instagram (@atomicbattery) and Facebook (Bill Morrison/Atomic Battery Studios), and regularly takes commissions and sells published art through 4C Comics.
May 20, 2024
Am I missing something? It looks as if Catwoman is crying as she watches Batman kiss Catwoman in a different costume
May 20, 2024
That’s Batgirl…
May 20, 2024
I saw Golden Age Catwoman too. Mainly I think because of the ears on her and the chest emblem on BATMAN.
May 20, 2024
These sre great. And Lady Gaga done up as Catwoman (or a Catwoman cosplayer doing Lady Gaga) could make a hilarious Bat Romance video.
May 20, 2024
To be fair to Bill, I couldn’t resist putting that headline on there!
May 20, 2024
The Chewbacca cover made me laugh . . . The cover text implies he’s crying over Princess Leia. But my first intuition seeing the cover (and before reading it), was Chewie’s pining for Han Solo given their seeming long bromance that maybe went deeper than a bromance (and hence my initial, if incorrect, laugh). But I guess, such implications and readings were really not at all permissible back when comics only cost 12 cents an issue (1962 – 1969) and even some time thereafter.
PS: I figured the top cover was Bats kissing Batgirl–otherwise Catwoman would have, I think, an entirely different facial expression (even tears of joy). But given how our embracing couple was drawn I can see why it our amorous lady was interpreted as Catwoman instead. Our couple looks a bit more Golden Age / pre-New Look to me, esp. Bats himself a la Dick Sprang or Jerry Robinson (and I always insist on the yellow oval around a Neal Adams’ geometrized bat insignia for Silver Age/Bronze Age /Modern Batman ID purposes–even when unfashionable). And the ears on Batgirl’s cowl do look more cat-like than bat-like perhaps, at least for superhero cowls.
But wonderful spoofs all around from the original Young Romance cover from later 1967!
May 21, 2024
At first glance, I assumed it would Talia.