What are the rarest romance comics? 33 33

[Ricksneatstuff]

Just back from CGC 

 

[Darwination]

Awesome!

[comicnoir]

Wow.

[Ricksneatstuff]

I think I’ve got a thing for fireplace covers

 

[sagii]

On 4/15/2024 at 7:39 PM, BuscemasAvengers said:

Next up is Love Romances 79. Had this pegged as either an 8.0 or 8.5, so happy with the result, and it takes over as highest graded.

Sooooo nice to see CGC credit Baker (and Colletta for that one).

Have to get one back now 

[comicjack]

On 4/27/2024 at 10:39 AM, Ricksneatstuff said:

I think I’ve got a thing for fireplace covers

 

Underrated cover Rick 

[Dr. Love]

Worthy of a hat tip for sure, sold right here on the boards - congrats to buyer and seller

 

 

[Ricksneatstuff]

Here are a few more recent pickups

If I showed everything I’ve been buying it would become quite apparent I have a problem. 
 

[Dr. Love]

The Charltons were the tell, buddy

[Bumble Kitty]

On 4/28/2024 at 9:47 PM, Ricksneatstuff said:

Here are a few more recent pickups

If I showed everything I’ve been buying it would become quite apparent I have a problem. 

You should see what I have acquired over the years!  Next time you are in town, I will invite you to the "support" group that helps deal with this "problem".

[comicnoir]

On 4/29/2024 at 12:47 AM, Ricksneatstuff said:

Here are a few more recent pickups

If I showed everything I’ve been buying it would become quite apparent I have a problem. 
 

Show us your problem.

[Ricksneatstuff]

[pmpknface]

On 5/1/2024 at 12:35 AM, Ricksneatstuff said:

Good stuff!  

I saw the Love Diary stories, and the "Need More Money" looked like it was a story title.  My eyes perked up if that was a story name in a romance book...  thought that was a "tad" suggestive for a second.  Jeez, what does Barbara do for that extra cash!  Then again, I haven't had coffee yet...

[Ricksneatstuff]

This book is pretttty! 

Walter Johnson’s style is growing on me

 

[sfcityduck]

On 4/30/2024 at 9:35 PM, Ricksneatstuff said:

 

That Alice Kirkpatrick cover is awesome! Her portrayal of beautiful women is top notch, and her dark lines are in the Caniff/Sickles tradition that some of the best art of that period (Toth etc.) followed.  I picked up one of her covers a few months ago at one at the Berkeley Comic Shows that HouseofComics puts on. I was so blown away by the cover, I just paid the $40 ask and didn't even crack it out it to inspect it:

I thought it was so cool, I went looking for other Alice Kirkpatrick covers. As I perused GCD, I began to sense a pattern. In most of her covers, like yours and mine, there's a bit of distance between the woman and the man. In your case, the arm between her and the man's face. In mine, the sort of distant open eyed look, closed mouth and the turning of her head away from the man. In a lot of covers she did, it just seemed that the lips were never going to meet and there was often that distance or turning away or the man seemingly restraining the woman:

Then I went and read Alice Kirkpatrick's bio. It suddenly all made sense. No wonder she knew how to draw such beautiful women ... but distanced them from the men.

Her covers are told from a Lesbian perspective. Now I think they are worth much more than I paid.

Alice Kirkpatrick's bio: https://womenincomics.fandom.com/wiki/Alice_Kirkpatrick

Kirkpatrick was born in September 1912 to bookkeeper John Maurice and Helen (Borton) Kirkpatrick in Huntsville, Alabama. She was their first and only child after 12 years of marriage. She graduated from Huntsville High School in June 1930, then may have attended college. In 1934, her live-in maternal grandmother, Carrie Borton, died at 79, and in July 1935, her father died at 68.

She moved to New York City in 1936 and by 1937, she had started working for Ace Magazines as a pulp artist illustrating stories in the romance magazine, Love Fiction Monthly. She signed her work simply "Kirk." In 1938, she moved in with Jacqueline Franc, a model and Broadway actress, across the street from the Museum of Modern Art (opened 1939).

Her first known comics work appeared in the January 1948 issue of Quality's Police Comics, likely published in November or December 1947. For Quality Comics, she did action features like 'Betty Bates', 'Hack O'Hara', 'Manhunter', 'Sally O'Neil' and 'Steve Wood'.

In October 1948, her mother died at the age of 71.

Her first identifiable romance comics work was the cover of Ace Magazine's Real Love #25, cover dated April 1949; in addition to further covers for Ace romance comics, her first identifiable interior romance work appeared in Quality's Heart Throbs #2, cover dated October 1949. From 1951 to 1955, she expanded to other publishers and drew romance comics for such publishers as Ziff-Davis (Cinderella Love, Romantic Marriage), Timely/Atlas (Girl Confessions, Love Romance, Lovers, My Own Romance), and Toby Press (Great Lover Romances). In 1955, she returned briefly to action comics, contributing covers to the first four issues of Navy Patrol, published by Stanley Morse.

Also in 1951, Franc moved out of their apartment, and a legal secretary named Muriel Birckhead moved in with Kirkpatrick.

By 1956, she had moved on from comics to dust jacket illustrations, which she evidently continued to do successfully until her retirement in 1977 at the age of 65. She had started spending her winters in Naples, Florida in the 1960s and moved there permanently upon her retirement. Though she moved around New York City several times in the 1950s and '60s, it is not clear when she and Muriel Birckhead parted ways, though it seems unlikely Birckhead moved to Florida, as she passed away in Teaneck, New Jersey in February 1984. Jacqueline Franc died in Allentown, Pennsylvania in July 1985. Kirkpatrick herself passed away in Florida in July 1997 at the age of 84. Neither Kirkpatrick nor either of her former roommates ever married or had children.

 

 

Edited Friday at 04:05 AM by sfcityduck

[Ricksneatstuff]

Fascinating history @sfcityduck

Thanks for sharing. 
 

I have picked up most of the Kirkpatrick covers and they are some of my favorite. 
 

I THINK this is my favorite, but so many great ones. 
 

[sfcityduck]

On 5/2/2024 at 9:10 PM, Ricksneatstuff said:

Fascinating history @sfcityduck

Thanks for sharing. 
 

I have picked up most of the Kirkpatrick covers and they are some of my favorite. 
 

I THINK this is my favorite, but so many great ones. 
 

I completely agree. That cover is not just great art, as good as anything of that period, but also emblamatic of everything I think Alice Kirkpatrick was thinking as she drew that cover. Basically: "This beautiful woman does not want to be with that man. She's looking in a different direction entirely. At me (Alice)." 

[adamstrange]

[comicjack]

On 5/4/2024 at 2:49 AM, adamstrange said:

Pretty cover 

[Dr. Love]

Romance was a blockbuster endeavor from 1950 to 1952, at one point capturing approximately 25% of the market in the post war shakeup, and involved all publishers (except Dell).  Certain artists specialized in the genre, especially as it represented a smaller footprint into the mid and late 50's - Baker, Colletta, and Romita come to mind. Others had a notable presence - Bald, Whitney, Anderson, Kirkpatrick, Kirby, Buscema, Pike, Hartley and the like.  

Then there were some artists who dabbled in romance, a side hustle as it were from their more known work.  These artists might have less than 10 romance covers, if that many.  Heath, Everett, Schomburg, Infantino, Ward.  And Bernard Baily.

Baily is particularly interesting for a number of reasons.  In my mind an accomplished artist, while identifiable in style, has a certain versatility that allows them to express their hand in different settings, different genres.  Many, could not - at least not have it look like the same hand slightly modified for context, the hero from a cape to a cowboy hat let's say.  But Baily could.  

 

That is impressive.  But a more complete transformation to something more mainstream, for a whole different market altogether - that is kinda awesome.  And not just transforming as an artist.  Baily was one of a small group who stretched entrepreneurially as well, for those were very few.  In 1943 he founded Baily Publishing.  In 1953 Baily produced this wholesome gem of a digest for his own company, For Girls Only - The Magazine for Girls of All Ages.  While at the same time, turning out Weird Mysteries and so much more for the ultimate fly-by-night publisher and creator of some of the most extreme horror comics of that time, Stanley Morse.  Wow!  

 

       

 

Edited Saturday at 03:46 PM by Dr. Love