Number 2010: She changed her life for a man!

Let me check my double-check checklist: Flowers, check; candy, check; sappy love card, check. Okay, I guess I am ready for Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Any of you who have significant others, just a reminder for you to remember them.

I am giving you readers a Valentine, yet another groaner of a love tale. I like love stories well enough, but I have been in the real-life love game long enough to know that there are a lot of wrong moves someone trying to attract a lover can make. In the case of June, she has Perry, a perfectly nice guy who likes her, but she likes Ken. She not only wants to ditch Perry for Ken, Perry is a nice enough guy that he helps her do it.

Not only is Perry a nice guy, he is a dead ringer for Clark Kent. When the inevitable happens and June ends up in Perry’s arms she might think, “Gosh, Perry is a real super guy!” And she could be right.

The story is by Dana Dutch, who was a star of love story writers for St. John romance comics,* and it appeared in Pictorial Romances #4 (1950). The Matt Baker-like artwork is attributed to longtime comic book journeyman Chuck Winter.

*Romance Without Tears and Confessions, Romances, Secrets, and Temptations, Archer St. John and the St. John Romance Comics, both by John Benson.

Number 1224: For the boys in the band, groupies never come first

Gals, here's a cautionary tale from Teen-Age Romances #17 (1951). It's about a girl who falls for a musician. Even in the days before rock 'n' roll there were chicks falling all over guys in a band. Young Martha, who thought she was only one, found out she was one of many. Tsk, tsk.

Dana Dutch is credited with the story. John Benson's excellent book, Romance Without Tears (Fantagraphics, 2003), is a collection of stories for St. John by Dutch, which the cover blurb for Benson's book calls “’50s Love Comics — With a Twist!” And we don't mean the twist as in Chubby Checker.

This book is still available from Amazon.com, and gets my highest recommendation.

The stories I'm posting today are not included in the book.

Matt Baker did the gorgeous artwork on the cover and for “Secret Love Made Me An Exile.”

Dutch and Baker also collaborated on “I Was Hurt By Love” in the same issue. All I can say about that is, who the hell hasn't been hurt by love?