524 ROMANCE COMICS
persisted. Th ere were 347 romance issues in 1955, the fi rst year of censorship, followed
by 296 in 1956, although the ensuing demise of publishers like Quality, St. John, Ace,
and Lev Gleason inevitably resulted in a signifi cant decline in romance-themed issues.
By 1959, there was a decade-low 160 issues, mostly from Charlton, DC, and Joe
Simon’s output for Crestwood/Prize, along with two titles each from Marvel, and the
tiny American Comics Group. Marvel suff ered a massive distribution-company related
collapse midway through 1957 and only two romance types remained among the 16
bi-monthly titles the once and future comic king could produce in an agreement with
DC’s distributor.
Th e long-running likes of Young Love and Young Romance from Crestwood/Prize
(and, beginning in 1963, from DC following their purchase), along with success stories
like DC’s Girls’ Love Stories , Girls’ Romances , Secret Hearts and Falling in Love , plus ACG’s
My Romantic Adventures and Confessions of the Lovelorn , were the exception rather than
the rule in the mercurial comic book industry. Even before the mom-and-pop stores and
other grocery, drugstore and newsstand distribution outlets began to encounter seri-
ous problems in the 1960s, far more comic titles quickly vanished than succeeded on
crowded newsstands. Superman and Batman, not to mention Captain America and the
later Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man , were the exception, not the rule. A few
funny animals types, such as Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, and Bugs Bunny, lasted for
decades, but most failed sooner or later.
Romance comics were no exception to the erratic nature of comic book circula-
tion. During their 1947–77 run, there were some 301 love titles. Only 103— about
one-third —lasted as long as a dozen issues, and fully 113 titles ran four or fewer
issues. Only 15 romance titles ran to at least 100 issues, so, in hindsight, the odds were
greatly against love.
Ironically, other than Simon and Kirby’s epic Young Romance #1, the Holy Grail for
most romance comic collectors is the once thoroughly obscure Daring Love #1 from
the tiny publisher Stanmor, except for the many collectors who treasure above all else
Baker’s St. John ouevre and eagerly pursue the rare reprint giants for which he did
extraordinary covers.
Daring Love #1 (September-October 1953), with a now-famous “roll-in-the-hay”
cover, is distinguished by the fi rst published artwork of Steve Ditko , who went on to
co-create Spider-Man with Marvel editor Stan Lee. Ditko did the fi rst 38 issues of Th e
Amazing Spider-Man before leaving in a creative dispute with Marvel, but those 38 are
among the most treasured in the collecting hobby.
Some of the romance failures were distinguished, such as Simon and Kirby’s
four-issue run of In Love in 1954–55 as part of the duo’s ill-fated self-published
Mainline imprint. Th e fi rst three issues featured what was still a rarity in romance
comics — nearly book-length “novels.” In Love #1 featured “Bride of the Star,” one of
the few baseball stories in romance comics; #2 was a soap opera entitled “Marilyn’s
Men,” and #3 was “Artist Loves Model,” the story of the frustrations of the nicely-
named comic book illustrator Inky Wells.
