Dr. Love

True Love Pictorial 6

The Crippen from Heritage. Structurally very nice, as the collection tended to be, but the page quality of some of them were lacking to say the least. Still, for a romance collector, the year long Crippen rollout at Heritage was a visit to both heaven (for obvious reasons) and hell (because you never knew what the inventory was that you couldn't see yet, and how to budget accordingly). Exciting and nerve wracking.

True Love Pictorial 2

True Love Pictorial 3

I couldn't really afford it but I couldn't really resist it either. The cover didn't knock me out but the condition of the book....a big ol squarebound looking real pretty can take my breath away. And money (credit) was still sloshing around back in 2005.

I've been following you folks on this fantastic thread for years. I saw this book recently in the Sale forum, and as I have a nice copy myself, I thought I'd share it with fellow Baker fans. As my board name suggests, I collect romance primarily - promotional comics coming in a close second. I'm getting my Bakers together for slabbing, rereading and scanning, so I'll post em along the way.

Andy

True Love Pictorial 4

You would have thought he would have done artwork for Negro Romances. There was a mention he may have done one of the covers but I don't think it was him.

From Alter Ego #47, "Baker of Cheesecake" by Alberto Becattini, referring to the Negro Romances #4 cover:

"...there is something "Bakerish" about this cover (the guy in the car, especially has a "Baker face", with eyes drawn far apart). Jim Vadeboncouer, Jr., for one, disagrees, but my guess is that Baker at least pencilled it (with inks, perhaps, by Vince Coletta or Giordano)."

I wish I had a copy to see for myself.

A little off topic, but that Trapped story was worth it just to hear Jay M's name mentioned again. Sparkle City was huge. Joe V, a true pleasure to do business with. And who could forget Fishler slinging boxes behind the tables?

You know what they say about making an ASSumption....

 

The Cocomalt was a relist after I already had by placed an offer on it several months prior. Stew tried to advise me via email, but I missed the auction. I quickly contacted him, and to Stew's credit we completed the deal that had already been previously discussed.

 

Them's the facts, so how 'bout giving me some love, Dr. Love...?

 

STEVE (Luvin' Larson)

My bad Steve. Chalk it up to sour grapes on my part. Enjoy the gorgeous book and that impossible to come by mailer. Love out.

 

Sweet copy SAC! Where did you get this one?

 

I have a CGC 7.0.

 

Mine too, though this book (1938) is fresh as a daisy and looks much better (has some cover wrinkles and some foxing, that's mainly it) than a 7.0.

 

Just found it in Canada...68 years sitting in the original mailing wrapper. It's unread as the pages are still compressed together.

 

Amazing.

 

STEVE (Luvin' Larson)

Steve, found it in Canada - sitting in Stew Silver's living room? I was waiting to bid on it, but if I'm not mistaken, then I guess it was you that sweet talked him into thinking he couldn't do better by letting the auction run it's course. Free world, free market, deep pockets win - but something about that backdoor dealing rubs me the wrong way. I'm old school, you put it up on Ebay, you let it run. If I'm totally off on this and it wasn't you, then accept my apologies in advance, wouldn't be the first time I make an orifice of myself.

hey Jack, I edited out the broken link, one of those things. But now that you've given me an inch, and since Mark got the ball rolling with some of his honeys, I think I'll throw something on here every day. Bump and run.

I had search and notify listings out on this and missed this copy when a phone call came in. Then i saw two more shortly after, one in Spanish, and picked them both up, figuring that three in a row like that meant the rarity designation was b.s. But left the searches out there, and six months later, not one single copy has shown up.

 

Amazing how often it happens that scarce items show up several at a time and then are never heard from again

 

Great book to own but Overstreet is wrong on the numbers in existence.

I see this book surface from time to time. This week alone had two copies

surface on eBay. I believe it is still a very scarce book.

Agreed. Generally speaking it's hard to find in nice grade, but then nothing will make a sweet book surface faster than big $.

And now for your viewing pleasure...nice, eh? Dang these promos are hard to come by, you can't just show up at a convention and pick some up, it's a labor of love. Not that I get a commission from Steve F., but I noticed that Metropolis has a Pycopay up now, $585 for a VF-.

I could bump this topic every day for the next three years - I keep saying I'll scan every promo I've got (1000+) and put up a website for all to enjoy - one day. I'll throw them here from time to time while I'm working on that...

this one's a quasi-comic, harder than hen's teeth to find in grade, gotta compete with model train enthusiasts (sheesh - why would anyone collect that junk?)

PS sorry guys, I'm editing this to take out the broken link, data issues, the image got blown away into cyberspace

Since romance comics are my thing, I wanted to correct october's statement. There is no question as to which is the first romance comic - it is Young Romance 1, published in September 1947. If a case could be made for a predecessor, it would not be the comic you bought, but instead be the 4 issue run of My Date that Simon & Kirby published right before starting the enormously popular genre with Young Romance. The definitive compilation of romance books was unofficially published in 1998 by Dan Stevenson , greatly helped by Michelle Nolan, Bob Overstreet, and about 30 other industry sources. Romantic Picture Novelettes, among other quasi romance books, is deliberately not included in the listing "as they are not felt to be true Romance Comics:" I'm sure you can figure out why. As far as being hard to find, you could have picked up a 7.0 slabbed Lost Valley pedigreed copy from Heritage this past June for only $107 including the buyer's bump.