526 ROMANCE COMICS
(the line expanded to seven when DC purchased Crestwood’s then-venerable Yo u n g
Romance and Young Love in 1963). Charlton published 72 of the 160 romance issues
produced in 1959, most of them generically bland. Charlton tried stirring up a little
controversy with its High School Confi dential Diary #1 ( June 1960), which top-billed
“Reckless Rebels Tearing at Life.. .” perhaps in response to the spate of fi lms dealing
with juvenile delinquency in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Th ese stories, of course,
promised a lot more than they could deliver under the strictures of the Comics Code.
In the historic DC reprint compilation Heart Th robs , published in 1979, only two years
after the last original DC romance issue, editor Naomi Scott spotlighted romance comics
for the fi rst time among books aimed at collectors as well as the general public. Among her
observations were these telling lines: “Interestingly enough, romance comics were written
and drawn primarily by men. Even the advice columns, with bylines attributed to Jane
Ford and Julia Roberts, were written by men. Over the years there were women artists
and story editors, but until recently the comic industry was dominated by men. Th at may
have had something to do with the romance comic point of view — and why we (as girls)
were never quite sure they were right” (11).
Scott also made this accurate observation: “Romance comics were popular for almost
30 years because they showed a simpler life. Love, romance and marriage were ends in
themselves; problems were limited to fi nding the right mate, the person who would share
the rest of your life. Th ey satisfi ed a kid’s need to know what was ahead, to know that
dreams could come true and that life was a simple matter once you found your man. Th ey
were done in the same spirit as the Doris Day and Debbie Reynolds girl-next-door fi lms
of the fi fties. In the late fi fties and early sixties, television was stealing a large share of
the comic book market — action-adventure comics, as well as romance. But the changing
morality of the sixties and seventies killed romance comics forever” (12).
Before romance comics died, however, DC tried to make them topical in ways they
never had been from the venerable fi rm. Since beginning to produce love stories in 1949,
DC had often recycled plots and lines, but had consistently produced new art to account
for changes in fashion. However, the situation began to change when DC produced
its fi rst serial in the long-running Girls’ Love Stories. Th is epic starred April O’Day,
Holly wood Starlet, who debuted in #104 ( July 1964) and ran through #115 (Novem-
ber 1965). During the mid- and late-1960s, several other serials appeared in DC’s love
titles. Th e company’s fi rst serial character was Bonnie Taylor, airline stewardess (as they
then were known), who ran in Young Romance #126 (November 1963) through #139
(December 1965–January 1966). DC picked up Young Romance with #125 (September
1963) and acquired Young Love concurrently with #39 (a renumbering complication of
the original series), which began a serial starring the registered nurse Mary Robin.
Another early indication of DC’s attempt to make romance comics more “hip” was
the appearance of images of Th e Beatles in Girls’ Romances #109 ( June 1965) and Heart
Th robs #101 (May 1966), though not the Fab Four themselves. Following the “Summer
of Love” in 1967, DCs romance artists gradually phased in diff erent fashions and lingo.
DC fi rst put hippies on a cover in a two-part story in Girls’ Romances #135 and #136
