My lifetime of experience and a disbelief in fairy tales with “happily ever after” endings makes me view love comics with an eye to the story that comes after the story. I like to think of what happens after the couple kiss, and the heroine believes this will be her dream man for ever and ever. Ha!
In “Sister Without Scruples” Fran loses her boyfriends to her hot sister, Rita. Fran looks like a whipped puppy every time the inevitable happens and Rita makes off with another of Fran’s potential swains. Instead of launching an all-out assault on her sister (“I'll snatch you bald-headed, you swain-stealer, you!”) she resorts to psychology to get back her man. But of course that is only half of the story. In real life what would happen when Fran won the guy is Rita would smoulder with resentment, then figure a counter move. She wouldn’t have to move far, because Fran’s beau has already shown he is attracted to Rita. Come the right time and
pow! the guy is back in Rita’s arms. No one can change a person like Rita. No one can change horny guys. The solution (short of murder, which would turn this into a crime comic), is to get far away from her. Fran needs to pack herself and her boyfriend off to California and not leave a forwarding address.
The artwork is by Al Hartley, whose career track in comics took him to various publishers, including Archie. After he found religion he went to Spire Christian Comics. He did a whole series for that publisher.
The story here is from
All Romances #1 (1949), published by Ace.
Al Hartley had a way with drawing girls. Click on the thumbnail for more Hartley, and links to a couple more stories:
