Sunday, December 9, 2007

Young Love #13: The almost-perfect sampler


Young Love #13, circa 1974-75

But He's Not The Boy For Me!
Stan Lee/John Buscema/Frank Giacoia
(Our Love Story #5, June 1970; Reprinted in My Love #23, May 1973 and My Love #33, March 1975)

Don't Let It Happen to You!
Jay Scott Pike
(My Own Romance #74, March 1960; Reprinted in My Love #12, July 1971)

The Girl Who Had Everything!
John Forte
(Love Romances #82, July 1959; Reprinted in My Love #12, July 1971; Our Love Story #8, December 1970; Our Love Story #25, October 1973; and My Love #30, September 1974)

How Do I Make Him Love Me?
Stan Lee/Gene Colan/Bill Everett
(My Love #13, September 1971; Reprinted in My Love #27, January 1974)

Plus the following unidentified Spanish material:

I Saw You Kissing
Runaway
We'll Just Say Goodbye
The Best Dressed Scarecrow
What Now, Sandie?
Wild Man
Suddenly comes the moment

This is a great mix of material for a K.G. Murray romance comic – a bit of pre-1961 Atlas material, some Marvel stuff from the 1960s/70s, and some Spanish material to fill out the package.

Browsing through an issue like this one can’t help but be struck by both the range of art styles, and also the change in fashions. From this perspective the Spanish material doesn’t look so out of place alongside the Marvel material circa 1970.

It was the Gene Colan splash page that really struck me when I first flipped the pages (he really should have had a stint on Swamp Thing… what a shame that never came to pass…and based on some of the panels in this issue I think an issue with John Totleben inking would have been worth the cover price alone…I wonder whether they ever did work together... as usual, I digress...)

Of course the Atlas material is to the Australian romance comics as the pre-Code material is to the Australian horror comics – the jewel in the crown.

I note the US reprints of the Atlas/Marvel material, I expect it shouldn’t be too hard to track down some of this material in colour, but I also reckon that some of this art - eg. John Forte, and especially the Colan material - really is worth seeing in black and white.

Now if only this issue exchanged one or two of the Spanish reprints for a vintage DC reprint, say a few Jack Kirby pages, and maybe a Charlton reprint for completeness’ sake, it would just about qualify as the perfect K.G. Murray Romance Comics sampler. But it’s a good one regardless!

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