WHAT KILLED ROMANCE COMICS (EXPANDED)?

What killed romance comics? I wish all questions were as easy to answer. It's pretty obvious that what killed love comics were.....good realistic artists.  Expert draughtsmen like Neal Adams, simply couldn't master the surreal, grotesque world of twisted love.  Good draughtsmen took over the romance comics and drove the readers away.

I know what you're thinking...Jack Kirby (above) was a good draughtsman and he did a great job on the romance comics, so where does he fit in? The answer is that Kirby was the rare exception who had the imagination of a bad draughtsman combined with the technical skill of a good one.  Less imaginative,  realistic draughtsmen like the artists at D.C. simply couldn't get down and dirty enough to imagine the bizarre poses that romance requires.

BTW: How do you like the Kirby drawing above? I like the way the man with blocky fingers wraps his arm around the girl with the webbed claws.  Amazingly, their faces seem to occupy the same space.

Above, a story about a girl who has to choose between a handsome normal guy and a loathsome hippie. With a subject like that it should have been a great cover, but the editor handed it over to a technical artist who had no soul. You see the result.

Here (above) a less skilled but more imaginative artist does a better job. The giant wicked city woman looms over her tiny boyfriend and lays it on him that she's slept with every man in town. The man should have been red-faced, but that was impossible given the position of his hands. Undaunted, the resourceful colorist instead made the man's hands red...and it works. Technical artists never do fun things like that.

  How do you like the "Man Starved" cover above? The figures are pretty stiff but the tryst is solemnized by the unnatural, stylized neck poses, the poker chip moon,  and the devil car watching on the bottom right. Only a lesser artist would have thought of cool stuff like this!

Boy, artists were fond of those wonky neck poses (above)! In real life the girl's neck might be broken by a pose like this this, but it works. The man's hand is goofy too, but it fits with the weird heads and horror comics color. You accept it as a stylistic flourish. 

Is this guy (above) kissing a cardboard cutout? What are those ginger root thingies on her arms? And why is she posed like that? I don't know, but it works for me. This is the kind of artist who belongs in the romance biz. 

The girl (above) puts her tiny little arms around her giant behemoth of a boyfriend, who appears to be sucking on her forehead. The artist is on to something here. The real life size difference between men and women is often shocking. You can't imagine how people so different could even procreate. Only an imaginative lesser draughtsman would be bold enough to take the trouble to comment on this.  

Here (above) the girl has the usual tiny arms, awkward perspective cheats, and fish fingers.  That's okay, I'm used to it. 

What I'm not used to is the way their faces fit on their skulls, The girl's face is extremely wide, and wraps around the whole front of her head. The boy's features are just the opposite...they're pinched and cramped on a thin, vertical strip on the front of his face. You see incongruities like this all the time in real life, but only the lesser draughtsman is brave enough to comment on it. 

I wonder if sci-fi artist Fletcher Hanks (above) ever tried his hand at romance comics?

Imagine a story where a big, angry boyfriend discovers another guy trying to muscle in on his girl. Fletcher Hanks would have aced it, and created a comic classic.

Many thanks to Romans for the comment that identified this artist.  

NEXT POST ON MONDAY MORNING,  MAY 30TH!