A story at boingboing the other day sent me to the site of artist Glennray Tutor, who’s responsible for the image below. What’s remarkable is that Tutor is not, as you at first might think, a photographic artist. That isn’t a photo of marbles resting on an open comic-book page. Rather, it’s a painting. All of it. And whatever you think of photorealism as a school of painting, it’s still an amazing feat.

And unlike Roy Lichtenstein (whom my wife eviscerates here at one of her blogs), Tutor isn’t trying to pass off someone else’s work as his own. That is, unlike Lichtenstein, whose works might be mistaken for being merely comics-inspired rather than a theft from specific panels by specific artists, with Tutor it’s clear that there’s existing source material.

So—what about that source material?

Based on the lettering across the top of the splash page, this was from an issue of Heart Throbs. (For other similar paintings, click on the link to the artist’s site above.

According to the Grand Comics Database, there were 46 issues of that title published by Quality Comics from August 1949 through December 1956, and 100 issues published by DC from April/May 1957 through October 1972. Since I don’t have the time or energy to go page by page online through 146 TOCs, can anyone recognize the story and spare me?

I guess I could always e-mail the artist and ask. But where would be the fun in that?