520 ROMANCE COMICS
themes. Even when 80 percent of the dozens of romance titles that had entered the fi eld
by 1950 were killed or suspended that year during industry turmoil, Young Romance
and Young Love emerged as best-sellers on a monthly basis. In his memoir, Simon
recalled that Young Romance #1 was a “complete sellout” and noted million-plus copy
sales quickly became routine for both titles. In 2004, when comics historian Jerry Weist
polled 44 leading people in the industry for a book entitled Th e 100 Greatest Comic
Books , Young Romance #1 was the only romance comic book included, ranking 28th. In
a sense, Young Romance #1 became a surrogate for an entire genre that existed without
continuing characters like Archie or Captain America, but through tales of love set in
an endless variety of backgrounds and situations.
Just as Action Comics #1 presented Superman for nearly a year without any super-
heroic competition, Young Romance had the love fi eld to itself for nearly a year until
Martin Goodman’s Marvel Comics (also known as Timely) came up with My Romance
#1 (August 1948). Goodman’s company was long noted for its success with knock-off
themes —indeed, Timely’s Captain America #1 followed the fi rst patriotic hero, MLTs
Th e Shield, to the newsstands 14 months later.
Next in line was the sleazy minor-league publisher Victor Fox, also never one to
miss a trend, although destined to remain in comics for less than three more years.
Fox converted the radio teen humor adaptation of Meet Corliss Archer #3 to My
Life #4 (September 1948), which began two years of a fl ood of somewhat lurid, short-
lived titles from Fox. Fawcett, a major publisher of superhero and Western comics for
whom Captain Marvel and Hopalong Cassidy made millions of dollars, jumped in
next when it converted the superhero title Captain Midnight #67 to Sweethearts #68
(October 1948). Unlike the other three pioneering romance publishers, Fawcett
boldly began Sweethearts as a monthly, perhaps with the knowledge that it was a comic
book version of True Confessions , the same publisher’s hugely successful adult “slick”
magazine. Indeed, Fawcett was the only comic book publisher to begin a monthly title
of any of the 147 romance titles to appear on the stands in 1949 and 1950. Fawcett
also began Life Story as a monthly in 1949.
Interestingly, Fawcett did not market Sweethearts to the readers of its other comic
books. Th e other Fawcett titles carried neither house ads nor listings for Sweethearts — this
from a publisher that heavily plugged and listed all of its titles in all of its other comic
books. Th e original readers of the early romance comics in 1947–50—mostly girls from
12 to 20 years old who grew up knowing only the hardships of the Great Depression,
followed by World War II— eagerly grabbed the romance comics for a glimpse of what
now seemed like the possibility of happiness and prosperity. On the other hand, many of
the parents of these adolescent females, reared well before comic books got going in the
mid-1930s, were not even aware of what the colorful pamphlet-style comic books were,
since they did not yet exist during their childhoods in the era before the Depression.
All told, Young Romance , My Romance , My Life , and Sweethearts combined had
only 15 issues with 1948 dates, also including the fi rst two in 1947 from Yo u n g
Romance. Publishers failed to pick up the pulse-pounding pace much in the fi rst half
