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Thursday, July 28, 2005

Eloisa Does the Academic Thing...Here's a Bit of Our History

I'm going to be travelling today, on my way to Reno and the conference, so I thought I'd leave you something fun to look at. This last January I "came out" and told my colleagues in the English Department (I teach Shakespeare at a university) that I was a writer. After they got over the shock, one of them sent me to a wonderful website for old romance comics.

The first romance comic published was called Young Romance. The first issue was a huge success. Here's a great little detail about it: apparently Martin Goodman, the publisher of Timely Comics (which later became Marvel Comics), attacked Young Romance as "virtual pornography." He ate his words, because a couple of years later Timely Comics started their own romance line. This is not the first one (obviously), but the agony on the cover, and the terrific 60's outfits, was just too wonderful! (In case you can't read it, it says: "My Mother! My RIVAL!"

Did anyone read romance comics as a kid? I was only allowed to have cartoons for long road trips (a bad mistake on my mother's part that inevitably led to green-faced children). I was addicted to Veronica and...and darn! I can't remember all their names. Jughead. Archie. Those were sort of romantic, although it was mostly thwarted, as I recall.
Eloisa James, 7:08 AM
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