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[Andrew999]

Apologies this is a day early - I'm going to be tied up with a family birthday tomorrow

This time, I thought I'd choose something outside my comfort zone. I rarely look at a teenage romance comic book (except for my well-thumbed copy of Jeanne Martinet's hilarious Truer than True Romance) but I am intrigued at where it all went wrong.

Arguably, the genre began with Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's Young Romance (1947) - you can't get a finer pedigree than that. They obviously struck a vein of gold because by the mid-fifties, Romance comics were outselling all other genres - including superheroes - estimates vary but around six million copies a month. Not only that, but I have it on good authority, they would be passed from hand-to-hand in high school - so readership was much greater.

It's clearly what girls wanted - yet Q1) how many women were involved in their production? Q2) was it really what girls wanted or was it what they were conditioned to want - were girls in the fifties essentially brainwashed?

This brings us to the sixties. Romance comics failed to adapt to the growing tide of what today we would call feminism. They would have lost sales anyway - by the sixties, TV was supplanting printed matter as the chief source of entertainment - but other comic genres adapted and relaunched - superheroes in the main. Q3) why did romance comics fail to adapt to changing demands?

By the seventies, it was all over.

Q4) Did teenage girls stop reading comic books/sequential art? Q5) Does that mean the industry gave up half of its audience and has never reclaimed it - what kind of crazy business decision is that - to ignore half your potential market?

So, looking at today:

Q6 and more) Do girls have access to comic books today? How many readers are girls? Are female superheroines (Batwoman, Black Widow) really what girls want - or do they exist mostly to satisfy the teenage fantasies of boys?

Q7) What would a teenage girls comic look like today? In the UK, we grew up with anthology comics - would a modern girls comic include, let's say, a) a soap opera based in a tower block, b) a strictly ballroom style dance strip of a girl fulfilling her ambitions to win the gold award at Blackpool, c) a Twilight-type story of vampires and romance, d) a girls school story of friendship, secrets and treasure, e) a teenage female detective who sees ghosts and f) the story of three girls in an entertainment troupe on a cruise liner.

I'm sure you can think of other potential strips and I look forward to hearing them - but is that what girls want or once again, is it only a man thinking he knows what girls want?

Then, of course, we come to the comic book needs of non-binary teens.........

Meanwhile, the book I've chosen is Charlton - because I do appreciate their work - from mid-period of the genre - that's 1962. It's at the start of the sixties rush to re-examine social structures (Dylan had launched his first album and Leichtenstein had chosen parody over pastiche in his homage to Romance comics) - what signs are there in the chosen book that there's something blowing in the wind and the times they are a-changin'?

Happy reading!

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=68399

[SuperScrounge]

Double Deceit - With a choice of two boys Martha picks a third option. Bwa? Okay storytelling, but I didn't really care about her predicament and the two boys barely got any character development so I didn't care about them either.

Second Chance - It's hard to feel sympathy for a gal who's acting like a bitch.

The Greatest Gift - Maybe it would have been better if the story had more pages, as it is it's just a slight sketch of a story.

All That Glitters - Didn't expect a romance story to end without a happily ever after. So points for novelty.

The Taming of Tema's Terrible Temper - Meh.

Lonely Hearts - Not too bad, but the resolution seemed rushed.

Are You Physically Fit? - Why does the doctor look like Hitler? The writer assumes that the readers want to do military service.

After three books from Charlton I hope the next reading group choice is from another publisher. 

[Robb_K]

Apologies this is a day early - I'm going to be tied up with a family birthday tomorrow

This time, I thought I'd choose something outside my comfort zone. I rarely look at a teenage romance comic book (except for my well-thumbed copy of Jeanne Martinet's hilarious Truer than True Romance) but I am intrigued at where it all went wrong.

Arguably, the genre began with Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's Young Romance (1947) - you can't get a finer pedigree than that. They obviously struck a vein of gold because by the mid-fifties, Romance comics were outselling all other genres - including superheroes - estimates vary but around six million copies a month. Not only that, but I have it on good authority, they would be passed from hand-to-hand in high school - so readership was much greater.

It's clearly what girls wanted - yet Q1) how many women were involved in their production? Q2) was it really what girls wanted or was it what they were conditioned to want - were girls in the fifties essentially brainwashed?

This brings us to the sixties. Romance comics failed to adapt to the growing tide of what today we would call feminism. They would have lost sales anyway - by the sixties, TV was supplanting printed matter as the chief source of entertainment - but other comic genres adapted and relaunched - superheroes in the main. Q3) why did romance comics fail to adapt to changing demands?

By the seventies, it was all over.

Q4) Did teenage girls stop reading comic books/sequential art? Q5) Does that mean the industry gave up half of its audience and has never reclaimed it - what kind of crazy business decision is that - to ignore half your potential market?

So, looking at today:

Q6 and more) Do girls have access to comic books today? How many readers are girls? Are female superheroines (Batwoman, Black Widow) really what girls want - or do they exist mostly to satisfy the teenage fantasies of boys?

Q7) What would a teenage girls comic look like today? In the UK, we grew up with anthology comics - would a modern girls comic include, let's say, a) a soap opera based in a tower block, b) a strictly ballroom style dance strip of a girl fulfilling her ambitions to win the gold award at Blackpool, c) a Twilight-type story of vampires and romance, d) a girls school story of friendship, secrets and treasure, e) a teenage female detective who sees ghosts and f) the story of three girls in an entertainment troupe on a cruise liner.

I'm sure you can think of other potential strips and I look forward to hearing them - but is that what girls want or once again, is it only a man thinking he knows what girls want?

Then, of course, we come to the comic book needs of non-binary teens.........

Meanwhile, the book I've chosen is Charlton - because I do appreciate their work - from mid-period of the genre - that's 1962. It's at the start of the sixties rush to re-examine social structures (Dylan had launched his first album and Leichtenstein had chosen parody over pastiche in his homage to Romance comics) - what signs are there in the chosen book that there's something blowing in the wind and the times they are a-changin'?

Happy reading!

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=68399

This is quite new to me.  I've NEVER before read a "Romance" nor a "Teen Romance" comic book.  And, after reading its first story, I have to say that I was attending high school just when this book was out, and NONE of the characters (apart from the little sister (in only a few of her panels) appeared to be even remotely young enough to be attending high school.  The three male dates, and the star all looked to be in their late 20s, and could pass for very early 30s.

Double Deceit
The story is interesting, and had a reasonably expected, but how else could this story be ended and have ANY level of surprise to the reader.  The only other possibilities are what would happen in real life, -(1)the 3rd man would not be interested in her because he doesn't want to spend a lot of time and money on a two-timer, or (2) conversely, he wants to date a lot of women at the same time, so he'll enjoy dating her sporadically (as long as she's no prude), because she won't want to get too serious with him or try to tie him down permanently.  This story is a vignette, with no room to develop characters, based on a perceived ironic surprise ending, and an unusual situation.  Unfortunately, it's not all that novel a situation, not very ironic, and not especially surprising.  So, it is just mildly entertaining. It's one of those that one is not sorry to have taken the time to read it, and does, in itself, not make the "comedy romance" fan sorry he or she spent his or her 12? on it, and is nowhere near so terrible that it makes the reader want to throw the book on the ground and jump up and down on it.

Second Chance
This was also a very short vignette and plot.  It was a tighter plot that could fit perfectly in just a few pages.  Again, both main characters looked way too old for high school.  The story was entertaining, and told well with absolutely no dead space.  But, again, it is a very common theme and many-times-told story, and something probably almost every reader has experienced.  And, being so, almost every reader knows exactly how it will end. 

The Greatest Gift
Her mother died young, and her father never showed interest in her, nor gave her the attention and affection she needed.  What a deep, psychological drama to be told in a ridiculously short 3 pages!  It is more like a leader advert for a week-long psychiatrists' symposium.  How could anyone tell a meaningful STORY in 3 pages.  Thank goodness I never get restrictive assignments that are THAT impossible.  All one can make of that plot given a measly 3 pages is an anecdote: "Love-starved girl finds man she can trust, learns to appreciate him, and then learns to accept love and give it back." Throw in a couple illustrative illustrations, et voila!

All That Glitters
Yet another 3-page vignette!  A girl not satisfied with all the ordinary guys she's been dating covets the handsome, star athlete, successful young career up-and-comer, and sets out to win him. She succeeds, and then finds out he's very selfish, with not nearly as much place in his life for her than she'd like.  This book is like a condensed notes "primer" for young women's relationships with men. I wouldn't call ANY of these vignettes, "STORIES".

The Taming of Tema's Terrible Temper (2-Page Text Story)
This was best story so far.  It actually had some character development and a little description of the setting.  It had a tight plot, which had some change in pace.  And, although the ending was as expected, it was interesting to see how the author got them there.  Maybe I'm learning why I'd rather read a short story or novel than a human-figure "serious" comic book graphic novel?

Lonely Hearts
An actual 10-pager!  Room for a plot and some details!  An actual short story to read!   And yet another story heavy on psychology (but, I guess relationships between people are all about psychology, so I shouldn't expect otherwise).  The oh so common tale of an older man with a young girl.  I've had one of those situations myself.  I wish the let down in the end had been so easy for me!  This one was better than the vignettes, with character development, pacing, plot twists, etc.  It almost had room to breathe.  Ten pages was actually enough to tell THIS story.  Many books give the artist and writer only 6 for such a plot line, and that cramps the author's and artist's styles.

Your Role In The Cold War (1 page PS advert)
Did teenaged boys actually read books like this???  I never once thought of reading one.  But, then, I stopped reading comics when I was 13.  If American teenage boys (and the girls who read this book) only would have taken the advice to get plenty of exercise and eat right, there wouldn't be the obesity and diabetes epidemics that ravage that country now!  But, I see those problems creeping their way into even northern Europe nowadays.  So, I guess it's just the modernised, technological way of life that makes it tough to reject the easy path.

[Andrew999]

I wonder if the characters were drawn as older than they were because teen girls like to think they look older and more sophisticated than perhaps they really do - just a passing thought as I read your excellent review - what did you think of th colour palette used throughout - to me, it never seemed to vary to reflect mood.

[Andrew999]

I guess the doctor looked like Hitler because the artist was one of those guys who didn't welcome being made to do PE at school  :>

[Robb_K]

1)I wonder if the characters were drawn as older than they were because teen girls like to think they look older and more sophisticated than perhaps they really do - just a passing thought as I read your excellent review -
2)what did you think of the colour palette used throughout - to me, it never seemed to vary to reflect mood.

1)Exactly so - no doubt about it!   

2)I agree that the colorist didn't take mood into consideration.  But IF he or she had had that much initiative, would he or she have settled for working for Charlton's slave pay?

[Robb_K]

I guess the doctor looked like Hitler because the artist was one of those guys who didn't welcome being made to do PE at school  :>

Unfortunately for those artists, too many artist had that relationship with athletics.  But it's fortunate for us comics and art fans! 

[Robb_K]

This brings us to the sixties. Romance comics failed to adapt to the growing tide of what today we would call feminism. They would have lost sales anyway - by the sixties, TV was supplanting printed matter as the chief source of entertainment - but other comic genres adapted and relaunched - superheroes in the main. Q3) why did romance comics fail to adapt to changing demands?

By the seventies, it was all over.

Q4) Did teenage girls stop reading comic books/sequential art? Q5) Does that mean the industry gave up half of its audience and has never reclaimed it - what kind of crazy business decision is that - to ignore half your potential market?

So, looking at today:

Q6 and more) Do girls have access to comic books today? How many readers are girls? Are female superheroines (Batwoman, Black Widow) really what girls want - or do they exist mostly to satisfy the teenage fantasies of boys?

Q7) What would a teenage girls comic look like today? In the UK, we grew up with anthology comics - would a modern girls comic include, let's say, a) a soap opera based in a tower block, b) a strictly ballroom style dance strip of a girl fulfilling her ambitions to win the gold award at Blackpool, c) a Twilight-type story of vampires and romance, d) a girls school story of friendship, secrets and treasure, e) a teenage female detective who sees ghosts and f) the story of three girls in an entertainment troupe on a cruise liner.

From what I remember, teen girls started reading a lot more teen magazines, as opposed to teen girl-aimed comic books in the early 1960s, and it really exploded exponentially by the early mid 1960s.  And they weren't reading any comic books by the late 1960s.

[crashryan]

I've read plenty of Charlton romance comics but I don't remember one with so many short-short stories. Three pages! As Robb said, these are vignettes rather than stories.

The cover is the best part of the book. Nice Dick Giordano art.

Double Deceit: Several of these stories are moral lessons. The need for a happy ending blunts this lesson a bit. The third boyfriend is in for trouble. I have a hard time believing Martha is suddenly going to turn sincere on him.

Second Chance: In the ending of this moral tale the girl suggests starting out with a friendship instead of going right to the clinch. This is an improvement. What a jerk she is up to that point, though.

The Greatest Gift: How exactly does this dude "through patience and understanding" teach the heroine "the ectacy (sic) of being in love"? That's the real story, and it's sloughed off in a single caption on the last page.

All that Glitters: Another girl learns another lesson. This story even spells out the moral in the final caption. It also is the least "teen-agey" of the stories. Nora lives at home, true, but her dreamboat is an established architect and she goes dancing at a night club (page 17 panel 1). More on this later.

Lonely Hearts: More pages allows for a real story. This one actually has a plot, nothing terrific, but a plot all the same. The speed with which Cole turns his young fiancee over to his son is hard to swallow. It reminds me of poor Ralph Bellamy, who always played the decent fellow who was The Wrong Guy and ends up shaking The Right Guy's hand while telling the girl he loves that she's found a better man. The snarky step-children never have much to do with this story and are forgotten by the last page.

Your Role in the Cold War: This is one of the patriotic and/or historical fillers that were dropped into Charlton titles regardless of the book's subject. Young men were still being drafted into the Army in 1962, though the Vietnam surge was a couple of years off. Joe Gill (yes, he wrote this one too) assumes all boys would want to join up...because widespread draft resistance was also a couple of years off.

The artwork in Charlton romance comics is drearily monotonous. Vince Colletta inked the vast majority of the stories. Colletta has a flair for pretty women and reasonably handsome men so the characters don't look grotesque as they might under (for example) Bill Molno. But Colletta also makes every penciller look alike. Be it Joe Sinnott, Matt Baker, Charles Nicholas or Bill Montes, they all end up looking like Vince Colletta.

Others have pointed out how none of these teenagers look like teens. They're like the high school kids in 1950s movies, pushing thirty and still saying "daddy-o." I hadn't considered that this might be a conscious choice because girls aspire to be older and more sophisticated than they are. That's a good point, but I think it's really just the result of artists not caring. Take Charles Nicholas for example. He just draws the same men and women he always does. The guys are all dressed for the office in suits and ties. When Bud in "All that Glitters" comes to dinner "dressed like a hobo," he's wearing a polo shirt! They sport generic haircuts and drive generic cars. The girls are coiffed and busty and though they sometimes wear slacks they usually don generic dresses. Every one of these folks could have appeared in one of Charlton's adult romance stories without alteration.

The stories are generic as well. Nothing is specific to the teen years. No one goes to high school or hangs out with friends. Archie comics gave a better picture of teen life than Teen-Age Love.

I wonder who read romance comics in the early 60s. Obviously someone did. All three major publishers had long-running romance titles which lasted into the early 1970s. I presume they appealed to girls, but I don't remember seeing a girl reading one. It's funny that up until their last few years virtually all romance comics were written by middle-aged men. Maybe girls finally figured that out and gave up on them.

I wonder why American romance comics insisted on short and short-short stories. There weren't many issue-long stories and serialized continuities were tried only in a few late DC titles. Would long-running soap operas have held girls' interest between issues? It worked for superheroes.

Be all that as it may, for me Teen-Age Love #29 scores a solid MEH on the Charlton-o-Meter.

[Robb_K]

I've read plenty of Charlton romance comics but I don't remember one with so many short-short stories. Three pages! As Robb said, these are vignettes rather than stories.

The cover is the best part of the book. Nice Dick Giordano art.

Double Deceit: Several of these stories are moral lessons. The need for a happy ending blunts this lesson a bit. The third boyfriend is in for trouble. I have a hard time believing Martha is suddenly going to turn sincere on him.

Second Chance: In the ending of this moral tale the girl suggests starting out with a friendship instead of going right to the clinch. This is an improvement. What a jerk she is up to that point, though.

The Greatest Gift: How exactly does this dude "through patience and understanding" teach the heroine "the ectasy (sic) of being in love"? That's the real story, and it's sloughed off in a single caption on the last page.

All that Glitters: Another girl learns another lesson. This story even spells out the moral in the final caption. It also is the least "teen-agey" of the stories. Nora lives at home, true, but her dreamboat is an established architect and she goes dancing at a night club (page 17 panel 1). More on this later.

Lonely Hearts: More pages allows for a real story. This one actually has a plot, nothing terrific, but a plot all the same. The speed with which Cole turns his young fiancee over to his son is hard to swallow. It reminds me of poor Ralph Bellamy, who always played the decent fellow who was The Wrong Guy and ends up shaking The Right Guy's hand while telling the girl he loves that she's found a better man. The snarky step-children never have much to do with this story and are forgotten by the last page.

Your Role in the Cold War: This is one of the patriotic and/or historical fillers that were dropped into Charlton titles regardless of the book's subject. Young men were still being drafted into the Army in 1962, though the Vietnam surge was a couple of years off. Joe Gill (yes, he wrote this one too) assumes all boys would want to join up...because widespread draft resistance was also a couple of years off.

The artwork in Charlton romance comics is drearily monotonous. Vince Colletta inked the vast majority of the stories. Colletta has a flair for pretty women and reasonably handsome men so the characters don't look grotesque as they might under (for example) Bill Molno. But Colletta also makes every penciller look alike. Be it Joe Sinnott, Matt Baker, Charles Nicholas or Bill Montes, they all end up looking like Vince Colletta.

Others have pointed out how none of these teenagers look like teens. They're like the high school kids in 1950s movies, pushing thirty and still saying "daddy-o." I hadn't considered that this might be a conscious choice because girls aspire to be older and more sophisticated than they are. That's a good point, but I think it's really just the result of artists not caring. Take Charles Nicholas for example. He just draws the same men and women he always does. The guys are all dressed for the office in suits and ties. When Bud in "All that Glitters" comes to dinner "dressed like a hobo," he's wearing a polo shirt! They sport generic haircuts and drive generic cars. The girls are coiffed and busty and though they sometimes wear slacks they usually don generic dresses. Every one of these folks could have appeared in one of Charlton's adult romance stories without alteration.

The stories are generic as well. Nothing is specific to the teen years. No one goes to high school or hangs out with friends. Archie comics gave a better picture of teen life than Teen-Age Love.

I wonder who read romance comics in the early 60s. Obviously someone did. All three major publishers had long-running romance titles which lasted into the early 1970s. I presume they appealed to girls, but I don't remember seeing a girl reading one. It's funny that up until their last few years virtually all romance comics were written by middle-aged men. Maybe girls finally figured that out and gave up on them.

I wonder why American romance comics insisted on short and short-short stories. There weren't many issue-long stories and serialized continuities were tried only in a few late DC titles. Would long-running soap operas have held girls' interest between issues? It worked for superheroes.

Be all that as it may, for me Teen-Age Love #29 scores a solid MEH on the Charlton-o-Meter.

All the teenage girls I knew read girls teen magazines in their early teen years and actual books with full text short stories.  In their later teen years they just read books, and I'd guess maybe one or two of the less popular girls might have read a romance novel once in a while (but I never saw evidence of that).  Maybe some of them started reading women's magazines, to get tips on make-up, lipstick, and how to attract men?  I was definitely NOT in the "wild crowd".  Most of the girls I knew were good academic students.  They all read books.  I read books, as well.  I didn't read comic books after age 13, until age 22, or so, even though I had kept my Disney books.  But, my aunt in Den Haag threw out my Dutch comics along with her sons' comics, during my non comic reading years.  My Canadian and US Disney Comics were in The Chicago Suburbs, at my parents' house while I was away at university at U. of British Columbia, and UCLA.  I never dated a girl who read romance comics in the early or late '60s.  My girl cousins all read comics from age 4 through 9 or maybe 10.  After that, they read books and magazines.  Our family was extremely education-oriented.

I was always surprised that there were so many romance and girl-oriented teen comics.  And, like Carl Barks told me about how he used to go to the local drug store to see if any of the kids who used to sit at the comic book racks and read comics for hours read his books, he NEVER even saw one pick up a Disney book; after 1957 or so, I NEVER saw a girl at the comic book kiosk spinning or wall racks, or newsstand, buy a romance or teen girl-oriented comic book (certainly NEVER during the 1960s!).

[Andrew999]

I wonder why American romance comics insisted on short and short-short stories. There weren't many issue-long stories and serialized continuities were tried only in a few late DC titles. Would long-running soap operas have held girls' interest between issues? It worked for superheroes.

Very interesting point - it occurred to me too that soap opera links through a running series would have made sense - especially with the sixties success of Peyton Place. Somebody wasn't thinking things through

[The Australian Panther]

I wonder why American romance comics insisted on short and short-short stories. There weren't many issue-long stories and serialized continuities were tried only in a few late DC titles. Would long-running soap operas have held girls' interest between issues? It worked for superheroes. 

Very interesting point. Got to go out on a limb here and suggest that short stories were the norm in most genres in US comics in the 'Golden Age' Probably that was editorial policy. That way you could buy a lot of stories and create an inventory. Without continued stories, you could slot the stories in anywhere and at anytime. Also made it easy to use reprints and save even more money.
Even where there were regular characters, like say Captain Marvel [Fawcett] and The Spirit and The Blackhawks, the books consisted of a collection of stories, not one long story. And even for books like that, pre Roy Thomas, continuity was close to non-existent. Long stories were mostly in books like Kerry Drake which were reprint collections of newspaper stories, It wasn't till the late 50's and early 60's that book length new stories became the norm. Pre Superheroes, it was also the norm for Atlas/ Marvel and DC. [The JSA books were a collection of short stories. 
The British went in the opposite direction. Their 'weekly or monthly papers' specialized in serials, which is perhaps why their 'Girl Papers' lasted a good deal longer.
Why did females in the US stop reading Romance comics? Still haven't seen a convincing answer.
There is still a big female market in Manga. Even translated versions among English-speaking females.
That said, the subject content of Japanese Manga is very different to 50's US comics.   

Cheers! 

[paw broon]

Panther mentions weeklies and there were some very successful examples.  One of the reasons for that success was the mix of features.  Romance comic strips and features on film stars and pop stars. Plus comic strips with pop and film stars.  Apart from the weeklies, there was a host of pocket libraries in the romance vein, all or most 64 b&w pages and all containing one complete story. 
https://kb-outofthisworld.blogspot.com/2010/08/british-romance-comics-star-love.html
At secondary school by the late '60's, I was not aware of any girls reading romance comics but they did seem to devour the pop magazines that were very popular.
Teen-Age Love, not a lot to say about this poor piece of work.  Simplistic stories that I can't see being appealing to girls. Perhaps It's that I know nothing of a teenage American girl's life back then, but I feel sure this wouldn't have appealed to the girls I knew at the time.

[Robb_K]

Panther mentions weeklies and there were some very successful examples.  One of the reasons for that success was the mix of features.  Romance comic strips and features on film stars and pop stars. Plus comic strips with pop and film stars.  Apart from the weeklies, there was a host of pocket libraries in the romance vein, all or most 64 b&w pages and all containing one complete story. 
https://kb-outofthisworld.blogspot.com/2010/08/british-romance-comics-star-love.html
At secondary school by the late '60's, I was not aware of any girls reading romance comics but they did seem to devour the pop magazines that were very popular.
Teen-Age Love, not a lot to say about this poor piece of work.  Simplistic stories that I can't see being appealing to girls. Perhaps It's that I know nothing of a teenage American girl's life back then, but I feel sure this wouldn't have appealed to the girls I knew at the time.

This is EXACTLY what I experienced in high school, and I WAS in USA then, at least for my last 2 years.

[Robb_K]

Panther mentions weeklies and there were some very successful examples.  One of the reasons for that success was the mix of features.  Romance comic strips and features on film stars and pop stars. Plus comic strips with pop and film stars.  Apart from the weeklies, there was a host of pocket libraries in the romance vein, all or most 64 b&w pages and all containing one complete story. 
https://kb-outofthisworld.blogspot.com/2010/08/british-romance-comics-star-love.html
At secondary school by the late '60's, I was not aware of any girls reading romance comics but they did seem to devour the pop magazines that were very popular.
Teen-Age Love, not a lot to say about this poor piece of work.  Simplistic stories that I can't see being appealing to girls. Perhaps It's that I know nothing of a teenage American girl's life back then, but I feel sure this wouldn't have appealed to the girls I knew at the time.

That's exactly why whatever girls in USA were reading romance comic books and teen humour/romance comics during the 1950s, were NOT reading same in the 1960s, because they moved on to reading the teen pop magazines.

[Andrew999]

I seem to remember my sister (five years older than me) read Mirabelle, Jackie and Record Mirror in the mid-to-late sixties. She was very pop-oriented. She stopped reading comic books (Bunty, Judy) at about eleven years old.

I stopped reading comic books from 70-79 but returned when 2000AD was launched. I guess an interesting question is what might have brought my sister back to sequential art (she wouldn't have been interested if it was called a comic book - she was far too sophisticated in her platform boots and wingtip hair, but she was addicted to soaps) - what if, for example, there was a weekly Coronation Street graphic magazine (trying to think of a good alternative name for an adult comic book)?

[Andrew999]

That's a good point, Panther. Shojo manga is immensely popular throughout East Asia. (I worked in China for a bit)

Be under no illusions, although nominally aimed at teen girls, these are widely read by adult women - even those in their dotage. Historical dramas (with a romantic interest) and fantasy-type themes (where women are able to manipulate people and events around them) seemed most popular to me.

Contemporary dramas less so - perhaps that's because women need to 'escape' from their reality? Without wanting to generalise too much, East Asian societies are still largely patriarchic with women seen as homemakers and mothers.

[Robb_K]

That's a good point, Panther. Shojo manga is immensely popular throughout East Asia. (I worked in China for a bit)

Be under no illusions, although nominally aimed at teen girls, these are widely read by adult women - even those in their dotage. Historical dramas (with a romantic interest) and fantasy-type themes (where women are able to manipulate people and events around them) seemed most popular to me.

Contemporary dramas less so - perhaps that's because women need to 'escape' from their reality? Without wanting to generalise too much, East Asian societies are still largely patriarchic with women seen as homemakers and mothers. 

Manga is tremendously popular in Germany, too.  But, it's mainly boys reading it, although more younger girls are reading the girl-oriented Manga than are reading traditional children's comics, as those have fallen off greatly, and, perhaps they read it until age 11 or maybe 12?  We need Comicjraut to comment on this issue, as I only have contact with kids on the subject of whether or not they read Disney comics - especially if I draw signed drawings for them at parties.  But two of my good friends' sons are big Manga fans, so I couldn't avoid knowing their kids love Manga, as I am in their houses a lot.  I DO see boys reading Manga in the Comics Shops, but see no girls doing that.

[narfstar]

Very typical Charlton romance. I agree the cover is the best part. I have to go along with romance comics were read by 4-10 year old girls almost exclusively. My cousin passed all her comics on to me. She passed on the Archie style books but I do not remember any romance comics.

[Robb_K]

Very typical Charlton romance. I agree the cover is the best part. I have to go along with romance comics were read by 4-10 year old girls almost exclusively. My cousin passed all her comics on to me. She passed on the Archie style books but I do not remember any romance comics.

I doubt that 4-7 year old girls were reading teen romance, or even teen girl comedy comics.  My experience was that during the late '40s and through the '50s,girls of 4-7 were reading the cutesy funny animal and little kids comics.  During the late '40s, little girls were reading Disney and the other animation-based comics, and comics about little kids.  During the '50s, they were reading the Harvey "little kid comics" (Casper, Little Audrey. Little Dot, Baby Huey, etc.), and moved onto Archie, Betty & Veronica, L'l Jinx, etc. from 7 to 11 or 12.  They were probably transitioning from Archie to romance comics from 11-12, and fully into them from 12-14, and afterwards, then switching to magazines.

[crashryan]

This discussion led me to ponder the different paths comics for kids took in the United States and in the British Isles (I phrase it that way because I don't know what happened in other Commonwealth countries). In Britain comics evolved from weekly story papers, which had been around forever. It?s no surprise that British ?comic books? were weekly papers containing a variety of stories, some of them serialized.

In the US the progression was different. We had story papers aimed at kids, the dime novels. Looking back over the history of American children's magazines I found that almost all of them were monthlies or bimontlhies. There were numerous weekly magazines for adults, but not many for kids. The dime novels were an exception. There were both weeklies and monthlies. Unlike the British papers each issue usually contained a single complete story. But the dime novel didn't transform into the comic book. The format died out, though one could make the case that the pulp magazines were their offspring.

What made the difference was the newspaper strip. That's where American kids read their comics,  especially in the Sunday color comic sections. Almost every household read a daily paper. Publishers knew that kids loved the Sunday funnies and lobbied their parents to buy their favorite papers. British newspaper strips seem to have been aimed mostly at adults and there were no Sunday funnies. British strips also tended to be tied to a single newspaper. The circulation of even the most successful strips couldn't approach that of the top American strips, syndicated to hundreds, even thousands of newspapers with readerships in the millions.

No wonder then that American comic books evolved from the newspaper strip. As we know, the earliest comic  books were reprints of daily strips and when publishers began printing new material it was presented in a newspaper strip format. One tradition that didn't survive the change was the serialized story. Serials played a part in many earlier original comics, for instance Jumbo. That soon died out. I suspect it was because there was no solid tradition of serialized stories in the US as there was in Britain. Publishers didn't know for sure whether kids would follow them. It was also much easier for the publishers to put out a book full of complete stories without worrying about continuity or consistency.

Once the comic book was established as a separate form, all comics appeared monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly. There was no concerted effort to launch a weekly comic book. I don't know if that was because a weekly was considered too expensive to produce or because publishers feared that unsold copies would pile up too quickly on the newsstands.

[Robb_K]

This discussion led me to ponder the different paths comics for kids took in the United States and in the British Isles (I phrase it that way because I don't know what happened in other Commonwealth countries). In Britain comics evolved from weekly story papers, which had been around forever. It?s no surprise that British ?comic books? were weekly papers containing a variety of stories, some of them serialized.

In the US the progression was different. We had story papers aimed at kids, the dime novels. Looking back over the history of American children's magazines I found that almost all of them were monthlies or bimontlhies. There were numerous weekly magazines for adults, but not many for kids. The dime novels were an exception. There were both weeklies and monthlies. Unlike the British papers each issue usually contained a single complete story. But the dime novel didn't transform into the comic book. The format died out, though one could make the case that the pulp magazines were their offspring.

What made the difference was the newspaper strip. That's where American kids read their comics,  especially in the Sunday color comic sections. Almost every household read a daily paper. Publishers knew that kids loved the Sunday funnies and lobbied their parents to buy their favorite papers. British newspaper strips seem to have been aimed mostly at adults and there were no Sunday funnies. British strips also tended to be tied to a single newspaper. The circulation of even the most successful strips couldn't approach that of the top American strips, syndicated to hundreds, even thousands of newspapers with readerships in the millions.

No wonder then that American comic books evolved from the newspaper strip. As we know, the earliest comic  books were reprints of daily strips and when publishers began printing new material it was presented in a newspaper strip format. One tradition that didn't survive the change was the serialized story. Serials played a part in many earlier original comics, for instance Jumbo. That soon died out. I suspect it was because there was no solid tradition of serialized stories in the US as there was in Britain. Publishers didn't know for sure whether kids would follow them. It was also much easier for the publishers to put out a book full of complete stories without worrying about continuity or consistency.

Once the comic book was established as a separate form, all comics appeared monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly. There was no concerted effort to launch a weekly comic book. I don't know if that was because a weekly was considered too expensive to produce or because publishers feared that unsold copies would pile up too quickly on the newsstands.

I think it was a little of both.  There really weren't enough artists in 1938, to supply all the new artwork many different comic magazine publishers would need to supply many weekly magazines, and subscriptions would never represent most of the sales publishers wanted and would need to get when the comic magazines'  sales price was only 10 cents.  So issuing one book per week of several titles was very impractical.  To get the full sales needed on such a tiny profit margin, books needed to be on the shelf for a lot more than one week, to have all the potential buyers see them. 

Our Disney franchises in Europe, and other animation-based comic book publishers, whose characters had a large, in-built, automatic readership started with monthly "showcase" leader series, which was a conglomeration of shorter stories for ALL the publisher's major characters, to introduce them to potential new readers.  USA's industry had started the same way.  In USA, during the 1940s, when the most popular of them showed more promise, they were given their own book, usually bi-monthly, or quarterly.  However, in Europe, there was more worry about whether or not kids would buy more than one funny animal or children's cartoony comic book.  So, instead of giving several of their different characters their own b-monthlies, or quarterlies, they just increased the frequency of their monthly showcase comics to weeklies, and added a regular monthly for just their top one or two characters, after several years of success of the weeklies.  They used special annual books, and periodic other special books, to issue their longer stories of their popular characters.

Despite this difference in format of their issues from US publishers in their heyday to European publishers in their own heyday (10-20 years later), roughly the same number of comics and story pages were issued per year for Disney, but less in Europe for other imported cartoon studio characters, like those from WB, MGM, and Walter Lantz, and, I'm guessing also more than from European generated own properties like Asterix, Bamse, Lucky Luke, Tin Tin, and the other "graphic novel" publishers.

[Andrew999]

Very sound comments, Crash - an interesting analysis

[The Australian Panther]

So, my thoughts on the book and on the comments.

Romance comics failed to adapt to the growing tide of what today we would call feminism. They would have lost sales anyway - by the sixties, TV was supplanting printed matter as the chief source of entertainment - but other comic genres adapted and relaunched - superheroes in the main. Q3) why did romance comics fail to adapt to changing demands?

 

Not only Romance comics but by the 70's the Western comic was basically Kaput, and by the 80s, so were War comics. Oh, there were a few examples as there were of Romance comics, but they were basically unsustainable.

In my opinion,, another aspect of why people still read comics but mostly only Superhero comics, was that until the last couple of decades, TV and Film could not duplicate with special effects the elements of a superhero comic, Whereas they could do War, Western or Romance.
The other genre which lasted in comics, [and even funny animals- in the US anyway - suffered] was Horror.
For similar reasons I suspect.

Are female superheroines (Batwoman, Black Widow) really what girls want - or do they exist mostly to satisfy the teenage fantasies of boys?

  Well judging by the cosplay industry, it seems to be what some girls want.
I've read Gail Simone defending the way Red Sonja dresses - she wrote the book for Dynamite I think, Wendi Pini dressed up as Sonja at cons, [Slave Leia anyone?] so presumably many females have a different attitude now.   

NONE of the characters (apart from the little sister (in only a few of her panels) appeared to be even remotely young enough to be attending high school.  The three male dates, and the star all looked to be in their late 20s, and could pass for very early 30s.
 

That seems to be more obvious in TV shows than comics, 'Happy Days' '90210' 'Riverdale' but its also true of comics. Do Archie, Jughead, Veronica and Betty really look like teenagers?
Do they even behave like teenagers? Well, some of the time. Maybe portraying teenagers realistically is considered too risky. Maybe we want to identify with teenagers who are actually more mature than real teenagers because we think we also are more mature? 

The cover is the best part of the book. Nice Dick Giordano art.

Pretty outrageous subject tho, even for 1962.   

what did you think of th colour palette used throughout - to me, it never seemed to vary to reflect mood.

   
To me all Charleton's colouring looked washed out and lacking in vibrancy.
Double Deceit

Several of these stories are moral lessons. [That seems par for the course for this genre] The need for a happy ending blunts this lesson a bit. The third boyfriend is in for trouble. I have a hard time believing Martha is suddenly going to turn sincere on him.

Agreed, too abrupt, you would find it difficult believing her sincerity.

This is a problem with stories this short, you try to cram in so much, the story comes out sounding phoney.
Second Chance is also too abrupt.

The Greatest Gift   Anecdote not a story. Does not work.

Lonely Hearts. Interestingly the cover scene is not actually in the story, and is almost a reversal of the narrative. 

Your Role in the Cold War - I'm guessing they were paid by Government to run these and put them in every book. Why, otherwise, would it be in a romance book?

Interestingly, two stories here credit Vince Coletta on inks, but no penciler. Colleta's inking is pretty obvious, but he could drown out the penciller.         

   

[Andrew999]

Many thanks to everyone who participated and commented on this reading group choice.

I agree the stories in this particular issue were brief and undeveloped (Robb) - and sometimes the character's were poorly defined. As SS said, who would want to date a b--ch?

Panther's comments on why whole genres have died out is an interesting one - that movies can now do them better. Will that be also true of superhero comics now that digitised effects can more or less do anything?

Apologies, by the way, for choosing another Charlton comic, I'm sure we can move away from them now.

I accept that girls moved into reading teen magazines more in the sixties and forward - but does that mean sequential art no longer has any appeal to them? It may be true that nerdy girls (nothing wrong with being a nerdy girl, by the way) enjoy cosplay - but what about the average girl? In the UK, girls comics thrived up until about 1982 and then crashed. What changed and how can we pull them back? Is the answer a magazine with a mix of celebrity gossip, fashion and shorter strips? (Of course, this needn't be in print format these days - it could be an e-pub or perhaps a webzine?)

I'm conscious that I worked with a woman until about 2015 who was addicted to shojo manga - so there is some kind of market out there somewhere.

Or to pick up Crash's analysis, maybe strips in newspapers might be a way back. UK newspaper strips tend to be humourous or adventure - but nothing to draw women in.

In conclusion, I agree with what Narfstar said - the best thing about this choice was the cover!

Over to Panther for the next choice......