522 ROMANCE COMICS
producing comics, the stylish Matt Baker , one of the few African American artists in
comics, shifted to St. John from action-oriented circulation standout Fiction House,
which produced no romance comics except for a 12-issue run of Cowgirl Romances in
1950–52. Baker’s shift was fortuitous, since it gave him the opportunity to illustrate
with a lavish, bravura style many of the best-written of all romance comics, notwith-
standing Simon and Kirby’s frequent gems. Baker, with a slick, realistic style reminiscent
of syndicated comic strip superstar Alex Raymond, produced nearly 12 dozen gorgeous
covers and a multitude of equally beautiful romance stories for St. John, which produced
165 romance issues from 1949 to 1955 along with several rebound/reprint giants.
(Th ree more non-Baker issues followed in a last-gasp 1957–58 eff ort before the fi rm
expired a little over two years after the original publisher’s death.)
Th e St. John romance issues, among the most popular with collectors and histo-
rians, featured numerous stories grounded in psychological reality by Dana Dutch,
whose career had largely languished in obscurity until comics historian John Benson
wrote two books devoted to St. John, Baker, and Dutch — Romance Without Tears
(2003) and Confessions, Romances, Secrets and Temptations (2007). Th ese remain the
only scholarly studies of romance comics history dealing with a single company, other
than compilations of reprints from the likes of DC and Marvel. Had the St. John fi rm
been better capitalized, it would be better remembered for the excellence of its all too
short-lived romance line. Th e longest-running title, Teen-Age Romances , lasted only
45 issues.
So powerful was the 1949 phenomenon of romance comics that National even
tried to change the emphasis of several stories featuring one of the fi rm’s few remaining
superheroes, the iconic Wonder Woman. Th ere was always a hint of romance in the
Amazon princess’s adventures, which began in December 1941, the same month Archie
fi rst appeared. Yet a handful of 1949–50 adventures and covers in Sensation Comics
clearly stressed romance at the expense of the usual colorful action for which Wonder
Woman was noted as, by far, the most successful costumed heroine of all time.
Eventually the romance craze was unsustainable. Th e number of love comics dated
January through June 1950 was a phenomenal 332 — compared to the 322 issues of
all types of comics produced in all of 1939. Th us, in the fi scal year from July 1949
through June 1950, there were no fewer than 588 romance issues from all companies
combined, or nearly fi ve dozen per month on the average. Th is does not even count the
romance themes prominent in the likes of Wonder Woman and Marvel’s Ve n u s title,
which turned the Goddess of Love into a costumed heroine.
Th e Love Glut, as comics historian Michelle Nolan has dubbed this period of
comic book history, soon became the quickest genre blood-letting in comics history,
absent censorship. Romance comics dated in the second half of 1950 totaled but
164 issues, a collapse that included only 61 issues dated October through December
- Th e Love Glut led to serious fi nancial complications at Marvel, Fox, and Quality,
among other fi rms. Even mighty National canceled Romance Trail and suspended
Secret Hearts , which reappeared in 1952, cutting the goliath fi rm’s romance line from
