{"id":31948,"date":"2025-02-05T09:00:52","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T09:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=31948"},"modified":"2025-02-03T17:13:19","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T17:13:19","slug":"teen-angst-a-treasury-of-50s-romance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/02\/05\/teen-angst-a-treasury-of-50s-romance\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen Angst: A Treasury of \u201950\u2019s Romance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Everett Raymond Kinstler<\/strong>, Matt Baker<\/strong> & various, compiled and edited by Tom Mason<\/strong> (Malibu Graphics)
\nISBN: 978-0944735350 (TPB)<\/p>\n

This book includes Discriminatory Content<\/strong> produced in far less enlightened times.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ever felt in the mood for a really trashy read? These tacky tales of love from another age are a deliciously forbidden and oh, so very guilty pleasure – if only for the gonzo appeal of a ghastly bygone age and some of the most potently compelling art in US comics history.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no real literary justification for today\u2019s featured item, and I\u2019m not even particularly inclined to defend some of material within on historical grounds either. Not that there isn\u2019t an undeniable and direct link between these exceedingly engaging assignations and affairs and today\u2019s funnybook market of age-&-maturity-sensitive cartoons. If and when taken on their own terms, these stories have a certain naively beguiling quality, like watching old B-movies. You know just when to go \u201cHey! Wait a minute, now…\u201d<\/p>\n

The story of how Max Gaines turned freebie pamphlets containing reprinted newspaper strips into a discrete and saleable commodity thereby launching an entire industry, if not art-form, has been told far better elsewhere, but I suspect that without a ready public acceptance of serialised sequential narrative via occasional book collections of the most lauded strips and these saucy little interludes in the all-pervasive but predominantly prose pulps, the fledgling comic book companies would never have found their rabid customer-base quite so readily.<\/p>\n

This cheap \u2018n\u2019 cheerful monochrome compilation, coyly contained behind a cracking Madman cover, opens with a brace of fascinatingly informative essays from Tom Mason whose \u2018Bad Girls Need Love Too\u2019<\/em> provides historical context before Jim Korkis covers the highpoints of the genre in \u2018Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?\u2019<\/em>: providing background for some (but sadly not all) of the mostly uncredited star turns revisited here.<\/p>\n

Creative credit for most of these torrid tales is sadly lacking, but the unmistakable fine line feathering of Everett Raymond Kinstler definitely starts the ball rolling with a selection of his exotic frontispieces from Realistic Romances<\/strong> #2 and Romantic Love <\/strong>#7 (both from September-October 1951) and Realistic Romances<\/strong> #4, February 1952 before segueing into the equally stirring saga \u2018Our Love was Battle-Scarred!\u2019<\/em> (Realistic Romances<\/strong> #8, November 1952) – a tear-jerking tale of ardour amidst the air raids, whilst \u2018Jinx Girl\u2019<\/em> (Realistic Romances<\/strong> #7, August 1952 and possibly drawn by John Rosenberger) follows an unlucky lassie\u2019s traumatic tribulations …until her man makes her complete and happy…<\/p>\n

From that same issue comes \u2018Triumphant Kisses\u2019,<\/em> a cautionary tale of a small town spitfire who would do (almost) anything to get into showbiz whilst \u2018Dangerous Woman!\u2019<\/em> (Romantic Love <\/strong>#7) proffers a parable of greed and desire from the magnificent Matt Baker. That gem-stuffed issue also provided the scandalous \u2018I Craved Excitement!\u2019<\/em> whilst Realistic Romances<\/strong> #6 (June 1952) exposed the shocking truth about the \u2018Girl on Parole\u2019<\/em> (Kinstler). There\u2019s a lighter tone to \u2018Kissless Honeymoon\u2019<\/em> (Realistic Romances<\/strong> #2) before Baker excels again with youth oriented sagas \u2018I Was a Love Gypsy\u2019<\/em> and \u2018Fast Company\u2019<\/em> (Teen-Age Romances<\/strong> #20, February 1952 and Teen-Age Temptations<\/strong> #9, July 1953 respectively).<\/p>\n

Somebody signing themselves \u201cAstarita\u201d drew the brooding \u2018Fatal Romance!\u2019 <\/em>(Realistic Romances<\/strong> #2) whilst the (Korean) war reared its opportunistic head again in \u2018Lovelife of an Army Nurse\u2019<\/em> (Baker art from Wartime Romances<\/strong> #1 July 1952), after which \u2018Make-Believe Marriage\u2019<\/em> from the same issue examined the aftermath on the home front.<\/p>\n

\u2018Thrill Hungry\u2019<\/em> (Realistic Romances<\/strong> #6) proved it was never too late to change, \u2018His Heart on My Sleeve\u2019<\/em> (Teen-Age Temptations<\/strong> #5) displayed the value of forgiveness even as \u2018Deadly Triangle\u2019<\/em> (Realistic Romances<\/strong> #2) warned of the danger of falling for the wrong guy…<\/p>\n

\u2018Notorious Woman\u2019<\/em> (Teen-Age Temptations<\/strong> #5) continued the cautionary tone whilst \u2018Borrowed Love\u2019<\/em> (Realistic Romances<\/strong> #2) and \u2018Confessions of a Farm Girl\u2019<\/em> (Teen-Age Romances<\/strong> #20) conclude graphic revelations in fine style and with happy endings all around.<\/p>\n

These old titles were packed with entertainment so as well as a plethora of \u201cmature\u201d (sic) ads from the era, the tome also contains a selection of typical prose novelettes – \u2018I Had to be Tamed\u2019<\/em>, \u2018Reckless Pasttime\u2019<\/em> and \u2018The Love I Couldn\u2019t Hide\u2019<\/em> – which originally graced Teen-Age Romances<\/strong> #20 and 22.<\/p>\n

Hard to find, difficult to justify and certainly increasingly harder to accept from our sexually complacent viewpoint here and now, these tales and their hugely successful ilk exploding out of Joe Simon & Jack Kirby\u2019s creation of the Romance comics in 1947 were inarguably a vital stepping stone to our modern industry and possible even society. There is a serious lesson here about acknowledging the ability of comics to appeal to older readers from a time when all the experts would have the public believe comics were made by conmen and shysters for kiddies, morons and slackers.<\/p>\n

Certainly there are also many cheap laughs and guilty gratifications to be found in these undeniably effective little tales. This book and era it came from are worthy of far greater coverage than has been previously experienced and no true comics devotee can readily ignore this stuff.
\n\u00a9 1990 Malibu Graphics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Everett Raymond Kinstler, Matt Baker & various, compiled and edited by Tom Mason (Malibu Graphics) ISBN: 978-0944735350 (TPB) This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in far less enlightened times. Ever felt in the mood for a really trashy read? These tacky tales of love from another age are a deliciously forbidden and oh, so … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Teen Angst: A Treasury of \u201950\u2019s Romance”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-romance"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8ji","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31948"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31952,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31948\/revisions\/31952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}