Don't Be Slutty, Girls!

Love Letters #10 (1951).

True Love Stories

You know it happened!

Here's the original: Lovers #76 (March 1956).

Dating is Fun!

Girl's Life (Nov 1954).

Champagne...Take Me Away!

Sweet, sweet alcohol dulling the pain since October 1958 from Falling In Love #22.

The Nights That Never Ended

This is a good romantic cover. The world outside of Michele and Dean's relationship is unimportant and ignored. One could interpret this as Michele focusing on the surprising presence of her supposedly deceased fiance to the point that he is her whole world. But what I think is really going on here is that she is also dead and stranded in purgatory but is not yet aware of her situation.

Overlay a different DC title header onto the original book and it easily transforms from a tale of heartbreak into horror. Michele is accepting of her dreary, empty existence until she unexpectedly reunites with her dead fiance and then reality begins to crumble. The world doesn't really exist except maybe as some ill-defined purgatorial construct of the heroine that will fade only when she realizes she and Dean will be together forever in the afterlife.

From Heart Throbs #92 (November 1964).

It's a thin line

I guess there are worse foundations for a relationship. At least hatred is more honest than marrying for money.

From Heart Throbs #90 (July 1964).

SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

Love Romances #98 (March 1962).

And the winner for Creepiest or Most Disturbing Art on a Comic Book Cover Ever goes to...

"YOUNG LOVE #74 from way back in June 1969!"

(clap clap clap clap clap)

"With us today is artist Nick Cardy, who drew what is overwhelmingly the most awkward cover scene ever to grace a comic book! It's a real work of art, folks! The nubile, emotionally distraught daughter with her breasts in her Father's lap, the pensive, thousand-yard stare of the father into the distance, legs crossed, arms frozen as if he was too embarrassed to move for fear of the discovery of a terrible, embarrassing secret. A true classic and I'm squirming just looking at it. How ever did you do it, Nick?"

"It wasn't easy. Presenting raw sexual imagery as something innocent and pure is a heck of a balancing act. Like most of my fellow artists in the biz we had a lot of experience sneaking questionable content past the CCA censors but the editor kept rejecting the preliminary sketches I sent him. He'd say: 'Too innocent! Not sexy enough! Too sexy, want to get me fired? Not enough innuendo! Too MUCH innuendo!' The cost of mailing all the artwork was nearly my ruin. We didn't have the internet back then. Human messengers actually risked life and limb running through busy New York streets to deliver the artwork on time! Some died, even, I'm told."

"But it was totally worth it! You had some stiff competition considering you were up against every comic published in the 1990s. All that hard work really paid off!"

"Yeah, I finally nailed the cover but I had to think about baseball a lot."

"Nick Cardy, folks!"

(clap clap clap clap clap)