Trying to find info on "True Love Promises". Rare Variant of "True Love Problems"? 1 1

[Jesse-Lee]

This doesn't help with the "problems vs promises" issue, but I found this online, and it's interesting that there were other name changes associated with this title:

Quote

The high point for romance comics was from about ’49-’55 when every publisher was producing numerous titles. Harvey, not to miss a hot trend, was there with their titles, but was pretty much out of the genre by the late ’50s, publishing their final book in ’63. DC, Marvel and Charlton, however, carried on with regular titles into the 1970s, when the category finally gave up the ghost.

 

Harvey entered into the fray with the following titles: First Love Illustrated (’49-’63); First Romance Magazine (’49-’58); Hi-School Romance (’49-’58); Love Lessons (’49-’50); Love Stories of Mary Worth (’49-’50); and Sweet Love (’49-’50). Soon after, Harvey took over True Love Problems and Advice Illustrated (’49-’58) from McCombs. This title was eventually renamed Romance Stories of True Love. Harvey actually advertised this book as Love Letters in late 1949 Harvey titles. In fact, the first issue was published as Love Letters, but this was covered up by the time the title reached the stands, literally, with silver ink! Unfortunately, Harvey lost out to Quality Comics in securing the title and hence, the title change to Lessons.

 

[rjpb]

As Harvey picked this title up from Lucille McCombs, the editors may not have been enamored with Problems being part of a romance title. Maybe it didn't sell as well as some of their other romance titles, and they decided to test if a more positive sounding variation might sell better, and did a partial run with a title change. Perhaps results were inconclusive and they decided not to change the title (until they did several years later to the more generic Romance Stories of True Love.)

[gadzukes]

On 11/2/2021 at 1:40 PM, rjpb said:

As Harvey picked this title up from Lucille McCombs, the editors may not have been enamored with Problems being part of a romance title. Maybe it didn't sell as well as some of their other romance titles, and they decided to test if a more positive sounding variation might sell better, and did a partial run with a title change. Perhaps results were inconclusive and they decided not to change the title (until they did several years later to the more generic Romance Stories of True Love.)

Interesting.

If they did the "test", I wonder if it was just in one region.

[Get Marwood & I]

 

[gadzukes]

I finally got my True Love Promises in.

The interesting thing is, the indicia says "True Love Problems" and is printed on the inside of the cover.

So they experimented with a "variant title", but neglected to change the name of the title in the indicia.