VALENTINE’S DAY COMICS: one more look AT THE romance COMIC GENRE

Valentine’s Day is yet once again upon us as well as as enthusiasts prepare the exchange of gifts as well as make appointments to spend time together, I want to spend a long time taking a look at a long neglected genre of comics: the romance genre.

You’ll see copies of romance comics up for sale on eBay or sometimes in milk crates at garage sales or in some cases for sale at thrift shops.

Although the heyday of the romance comics is long past, for collectors searching for important overlooked titles as well as unusual comics there are a few romance comics available that are historically significant as well as even valuable.

The subject of the romance genre can be defined as follows:

Romance comics are comic stories that offer with strong emotional relationships, typically between the sexes, as well as their attendant problems. The typical romance comic has a tendency to focus on: unrequited love, jealously as well as where a connection is present, the risk or truth of divorce as well as the dissolution of love, together with all way of heartache as well as problems surrounding dating as well as courting, etc.

The heyday of the romance comic genre was most likely the early 1950s however publication of solely romance themed stories really begins even earlier To my understanding the very first full as well as appropriate romance comic goes back to the late 1940s, when prize publications published:

Young romance #1 (September 1947) – The very first romance Comic

With a cover by the King Jack Kirby as well as a story by Kirby as well as Joe Simon, you’d be forgiven for believing these are the credit scores to an Atlas Captain America comic. However, you would be wrong. With the end of the War, war as even super-hero comics experienced a decline in sales, the time was for that reason ripe for other genres to discover their method into the spotlight. That occurs right here with this romance themed comic. With only 13 on the CGC census, if you discover a copy of this book, you ought to get hold of it. In 2009 a lowly 1.0 sold for $71.00 on ComicLink in a March 19th auction. because then the costs have remained stable with higher grades fetching all over from $567.63 (Heritage Auction of an 8.0 on February 23, 2013) to $573.60 (Heritage Auction of a 7.5 on Feb. 25, 2017).

Love Romances #97 (January 1962) – Stan Lee written, Jack Kirby drawn like story

Atlas Comics gives us this charming feast, however this time with Stan Lee offering the story in the Silver Age as we discover Lee teaming up with Jack Kirby for an early non-Super-hero affair. like Romances #97 in certified 6.5 grade sold for $317.00 on April 18, 2016 in an eBay auction. much more recently, this comic sold in certified 5.0 grade in December of 2018 for $112.50. With all of 5 copies on the CGC census, some Lee-Kirby enthusiasts will most likely pay some huge money for this early pre-Super-hero team up.

Girl’s Romances #109 (June 1965)- guest appearance by the Beatles

She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah. This DC comic may look like it belongs on a ‘Comics that Rock’ blogpost list, however it’s set squarely in the Silver Age romance genre. What occurs when a woman in like with the Beatles gets a date with a genuine boy? She ditches the Beatles. What’s unusual is why the gene Colan & John Romita art for this problem makes the Beatles look so weird. They get Paul much more or less right, on the cover, however John (or Ringo???) appears like Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones. In any type of case, once again a unusual comic with few copies on the CGC census (so few that in this situation it’s a Census data pending book), sells continuously for high costs when it emerges. So far, that’s happened twice; on June 2013 when it sold in 7.0 certified grade for $217.00 as well as in April of 2016, when, in 4.5, it sold for $245.00.

DC 100-Page Super-spectacular #5 (April 1971) – Scarce DC romance special

By the Bronze Age, the romance comic was still around however on its last legs. That makes this DC Super-special all the much more unusual as well as valuable. The cover to this comic boasts that, at 100 pages, it is “the most significant like mag ever”, however I question for visitors uninterested in the romance genre that adding so much material was a strong selling point. It was most likely an original little print run (only 69 provided on the CGC census), in tandem with the problem in keeping the square bound Giant-Size comics in great condition, which make high-grade copies of this book so expensive. exactly how expensive? I’m thankful you asked, on 10/23/2018 an 8.0 sold for $761.00 at a ComicLink auction. In higher grades, this book has likewise damaged the $1000.00 mark on a number of occasions. A 9.4 sold for $1,575.00 on a Comic link auction from June of 2015, as well as before that, the exact same grade sold for $1,865.00 on June 5, 2014. costs seem to be trending donull