I’ve been reading a lot of old timey romance comics lately thanks to the wonderful site Comic Book Plus, and previously shared three stories that dealt with the issue of weight—1950’s “Too Fat for Love,” 1949’s “Was I Too Fat to Be Loved?,” and 1952’s “Too Fat For Love” —only one of which didn’t demand that its heroine slim down in order to be seen as worthy of a happy ending. But I’ve now come across a fourth weight-themed story, this one so mean and nasty and insulting that it makes the flaws of those other stories seem minor by comparison.

“I Was a Fat Girl” appeared in Love Diary #13 (February 1951), and starred 18-year-old Nancy, who as drawn when the story begins, didn’t seem to have weight issues yet … well, except for on the splash page, which made sure to show her at her heaviest. (more…)

Not sure why the editors at Charlton felt a need to publish a comic attacking those godless communists on the other side of the Iron Curtain in Love Diary #23 (September 1962), surrounded by the standard romance stories you’d expect to find in such a title, but for some reason, that’s exactly what they did.

“God is Never Out of Style,” drawn by Rocke Mastroserio and written by (your guess is as good as mine), instead of being about a woman’s search for true love, is rather a stern warning not to “scoff at the beliefs of our forefathers” and certainly never “be tempted at times to put your religion second.”

A check of the Grand Comics Database shows that this incongruous one-pager ran eight times, first in Teen-Age Love #27 (August 1962) and last in I Love You #44 (February 1963).

Bottom line—go to the beach instead of church and it’ll be your fault if we lose the Cold War!

I have no idea what teens thought about the story 50+ years ago, but since we won (we did, didn’t we?), I take it they took its message to heart.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve run across three romance comics containing stories about overweight women having trouble finding true love. And I’ve been intrigued by the message they were sending, in that two of the protagonists only arrived at happy endings after reaching a societally approved weight.

But body shaming isn’t limited to the stories. It spills over into text pages, too, as in this example, titled “Nobody Loves a Fat Girl,” from Young Romance #8 (April 1951). I have no idea who wrote this piece under the byline Charmaigne, but whoever it was starts off by making sure the teen reader of the comic is insecure about her appearance.

Oh, you may be just a few pounds overweight now, and your boyfriend might even like you that way … but that’s won’t last!

There’s only a few pounds difference between your pleasingly plump status of today and that of a tubby woman tomorrow.

So if you want to keep your man, you’d better not let yourself go, girls!

(more…)

We’ve already learned that the protagonist of the 1950 romance comic book story “Too Fat for Love” was required to slim down before finding true love, even though her man said he’d always loved her whatever her size, while the far more enlightened tale, 1949’s “Was I Too Fat to Be Loved?” didn’t demand its heroine lose a pound in order to embrace happiness.

A few years later, another tale on a similar topic—also titled “Too Fat for Love”—appeared in Great Lover Romances #3 (March 1952) and was later reprinted in Dream of Love #9 (1958). Which gives us a third chance to see how old timey romance comics dealt with society’s insistence that only women who maintain a certain idealized body size are deserving of love. (This time courtesy of artist Myron Fass and an uncredited writer.)

The story begins as “famous comedy star” Dorothy Drake takes a pie in the face on the set of her new movie. She hates being the butt of jokes, but knows that at her size, those are the only roles available. (more…)

Some of the promises made by ads in the backs of old comics were small, like claims a pair of X-Ray Specs would let us see the bones in our hands and through the clothes of our friends. Other promises were larger, such as the one I told you about made in 1932 that a clipped coupon could turn someone into a professional writer.

But the inside back cover of Four Favorites #22 (March 1946) promised the most life-changing reward of all—a movie contract!

Send in a buck and you’d receive the book How to Get Into the Movies, and if you had, why, you might now be as famous as Roger Batton.

Who?

Batton, who provided the testimonial above, claims to have gotten a part in the 1944 film Song of the Open Road thanks to that book. One problem—the IMDb entry for that film includes no one by that name. In fact, there’s no entry for Roger Batton on IMDb at all!

As for Judith Allen, who wrote How to Get Into the Movies, she did seem to have had a legit acting career, though IMDb lists her with a total of 37 credits through 1952, rather than the 52 claimed through 1946 by the ad.

Did her book ever get anyone into the movies other than Batton, who (without having seen the film) I suspect only appeared, if at all, uncredited as one of the “Hollywood Canteen Kids”? There’s no way of knowing, I guess, but if I cared enough, I could check out her advice myself, because there’s a copy of her book available at AbeBooks for only $10.00.

I suspect, however, that her advice, whether the price is one dollar or ten, is still overpriced, and unlikely to get me or anyone else a movie contract. If you’re desperate, though, feel free to give it a shot.

If you scored a new television this holiday season, either as a gift or from a sale, you’re probably figuring you’ll have no problems with it, that it’ll perform perfectly for you until technology overtakes it and you decide to dump it for an even cooler screen. But TVs didn’t used to be that reliable, at least not according to the TV Owners Guide that could be purchased for $1.98 from an ad in the back of Web of Evil #1 (November 1952)

How unreliable were they? So unreliable that a selling point for the book was that if you followed the advice inside, “You may actually have to call a repairman only once a year!”

Only once a year? As someone who’s never called a television repairman ever, it’s hard to imagine a time when needing only a single annual visit would be considered a wonder.

How bad were things for owners of TV sets in 1952? According to the ad, the book’s $1.98 price was “less than 1/2 the cost of a single service call.” And “you can save the $30-$60 service fees you are now paying, and you can save most of your $10-$15 repair bills.” Take inflation into account, and those ’50s TVs turn into a money sink.

So let’s all be very grateful we’re living in 2015 and not 1952. After all, you wouldn’t want to have to see this guy all the time …

As you may recall, I recently took issue with the ending to the 1950 comic book romance story “Too Fat for Love” because of its implied message that unless an overweight girl got thin, she didn’t really deserve to find true love. While wandering the excellent resource Comic Book Plus, I just found another story on the same theme in the June 1949 issue of First Love Illustrated.

Note that I didn’t discover this because I was actively looking for another similar story; it just appeared. For all I know, this was a frequent subject for romance comics to tackle at that time.

In “Was I Too Fat to Be Loved?,” drawn by Bob Powell and written by someone whose identity is apparently no longer known, 16-year-old Roz is miserable because “the world may love a fat man but the world’s boys sure detest the fat girl.”

Let’s see how things turn out for the her, shall we? (more…)

According to the inside back cover of the Summer 1945 issue of True Comics, the whole Marvel family—and that’s Marvel family as in the original “Shazam!” Captain Marvel, not Marvel Comics—wants you to subscribe to Mechanix Illustrated.

I’m sure the fact Mechanix Illustrated was published by Fawcett, the same company that put out Captain Marvel‘s line of comics, had nothing to do with his opinion that any “wide-awake fellow” wouldn’t want to miss an issue. (more…)

Thanks to a Tumblr post, I was reminded of a Marvel Bullpen moment I’d completely forgotten. The following response apparently appeared in answer to a reader’s letter about Wolverine’s height, and was published in X-Men #103 (cover dated February 1977).

Did we really say those things? I’m no longer sure.

If we didn’t say those things, then who put those words in our mouths? I’m no longer sure of that either.

It was probably Chris Claremont, as he was writing X-Men at the time, and the writer of a book always got first shot at putting together that title’s letters column unless there was a compelling reason against it. But all this time later, I don’t feel comfortable guaranteeing it was him and not one of the Assistant Editors.

I guess I could always track down Chris and see whether his memory is any better than mine …

While I was reading the Winter 1950 issue of the romance comic Darling Love (as one does on a Sunday afternoon), I came across the 8-page story “Too Fat for Love,” written by May Richstone and drawn by Harry Lucey. And I wondered—would I be as pleased with its ending as I was with the slut-shaming smackdown from that 1954 issue of Dream Book of Romance?

By which I mean …

… would Mona Cacchio, constantly ridiculed for her weight, be allowed by the storytellers to find true love without having to conform to society’s pressures to achieve a supposedly ideal size? Or would they insist she become slim to be seen as deserving of a mate?

Let’s see, shall we? (more…)