Saturday, May 7, 2011

The Art of Looking Lurid

Romance comics always promised more scandal than they delivered, particularly after the Comics Code went into effect.

Intimate, published by Charlton, 1957:


1 comment:

  1. It's funny how many (maybe even most) pre-Code romance comic covers promised sex and immorality more directly than comics from other genres...but except for costuming they delivered way less. Charlton also published the infamous "Just what do I have to do to get those?" cover.

    Charlton's later romance comics were interesting for their strident defense of "traditional values." Once the sixties got underway Joe Gill ground out countless stories of "women's libbers," female executives, and the like who see the light and abandon their crazy notions to become housewives. Of course other companies' romance books often took the same stance concerning a woman's role, but nobody matched the stridency of Gill's scripts (he was kinda hard on hippies, too).

    ReplyDelete