Dr. Love Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Love Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Love Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 I like these books a whole lot. The Gold are cool, the Silver are even cooler. A bunch of talented artists turned in some spectacular work. 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagii Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 Cool set! Though there are many penciled Romance covers I love (ba da bum!), i'm kinda partial to photo covers in that genre. Great set Doc! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sqeggs Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 Great books! Some of these I haven't seen before. They have to be quite scarce in these grades. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamstrange Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 Quality had a great stable and produced some real nice books. As a human with a Y chromosome, you'd never catch me collecting Quality Romance comics. War comics, however, are entirely different matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doohickamabob Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 Quality had a great stable and produced some real nice books. The Tragic True-Romance Tribulations of Patricia Tribble-head Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doohickamabob Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 "Half man, half sea lion, Brian's playful romantic ways soon earned my 'seal' of approval!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doohickamabob Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 "Though I lost the man of my dreams, it ended up being all good, because I get a 10% employee discount -- and the quesadillas at Pedro's are to die for." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusterMark Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 Funny posts by Doo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Love Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 War comics, however, are entirely different matter. Indeed. This rainbow effect is quite something and is either unique in Quality romance or close to it. My Y chromsome salutes yours sir! 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sacentaur Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 New arrival, even with this issue I now only have half the run (1, 3, 6, and 8): Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Love Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 Very nice looking copy! #8 is the hardest issue to find in grade. 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sqeggs Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 Very nice looking copy! #8 is the hardest issue to find in grade. I can believe it. It's such a tough run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sacentaur Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 It's such a tough run. Tell me about it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Love Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 i'm kinda partial to photo covers There's no accounting for taste. #1,2, and a Canadian 3, with Ira Schnapp killing it on the bc. 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Love Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 DC's management was done with photos after 6 issues. To understand why, it helps to grasp the market dynamic at the time. Romance, the new comic genre, was pulling in outstanding numbers as it tapped into a completely new demographic. The industry was in a feeding frenzy. The romance ramp-up was simply explosive. Below are numbers for the whole genre, all publishers included. Romance Boom Oct 1947 to Dec 1948 - 15 issues Jan-June 1949 - 42 issues July-Dec 1949 - 256 issues Jan-June 1950 - a staggering 332 issues, an average of nearly two romance issues every day. No new genre in the history of comics from the 1930's through the 1970's ever so dominated the racks over a six month period. By this point more than 1 in 4 of all comics published was a romance comic. You can kind of see it in this pic, especially as you move to the right side of the rack and the alphabetical order heads toward L for Love. However - such a torrid pace was "not sustainable". Romance Bust July-Dec 1950 - 150 issues, steadily declining with 34 for July and 18 for December. In 1950, "publishers kissed off no fewer than 117 of 147 romance titles." Marvel saw fully 25 of its 30 romance titles cancelled or suspended in 1950. The vast majority of Marvel's romance titles didn't make it beyond a second or third issue. The market forces proved even more fickle for Fox - all 21 romance titles died in 1950, along with the entire company. Similar downturns were in store for Fawcett and Quality. Of its four initial titles (Girls' Love, Girls' Romances, Romance Trail and Secret Hearts), DC cancelled Romance Trail and suspended Secret Hearts for 1 1/2 years while they figured out what the heck was going on and pivoted to a new strategy for 1951: Line drawn covers, especially to separate themselves from the big dog Fawcett who continued to pump out their entire romance line with photo-covers on a monthly basis (everyone else was bi-monthly at best). Along those same lines, cover content was key - Fawcett covers were consistently upbeat, and smiling couples were their thing. DC, who had started out with the same message, instead turned up the drama volume - heartbreak and tears was to become their dominant romance theme for the next 25 years. They also decided to forgo back cover advertising, a big source of revenue, in favor of a concerted artistic drive at self-promotion. These back covers were more than just house ads - they were advertising campaigns, led by one extraordinary man - Ira Schnapp. 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sacentaur Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Very informative Dr. L., the historical data and insights are fascinating! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagii Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 i'm kinda partial to photo covers There's no accounting for taste. #1,2, and a Canadian 3, with Ira Schnapp killing it on the bc. Beautiful set! Striking prints, and great photos! Thanks for posting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Love Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 (edited) Thanks guys, my pleasure. (thumbs u So, after the short initial six issue or so run of photo-covers, came the new look. For the period 1949-1952, it was ushered in by Robert Kanigher, a writer/editor who would have much more success and recognition for his direction of the war books and Wonder Woman than the romance. As he himself said in a rare interview: "I never asked… I… I never worked with anyone. That is, I never worked with the publisher, the assistant publisher, the editor-in-chief, I… nobody. Whit (Whitney Ellsworth, editorial director) started it by just giving me titles and that’s the last I saw of him. And then… those were the romance titles, and no-one seems to know anything about the romance editors, do they?" That would be correct. In addition, we're not sure who the pencillers were on specific issues for the first few years, at least not until John Romita took over in 1957 and became the dedicated artist for the romance titles. It could be any one of these guys: Mike Sekowsky, Sy Barry, Irv Novick, Tony Abruzzo, or Bernard Sachs. Sachs was the predominant inker, and it could be that the DC look has more to do with his influence than we realize. Edited May 17, 2015 by Dr. Love 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
