Where is the Woo?

This week in the studio we have been working on a Transformer nicknamed Dead-Arm, some Blackest Night dead guys, Magog kicking some butt, Booster fighting another guy,  a bunch of people on another planet (I think) fighting some other dudes… do you see a theme here?

I say, where is the love? Where is the happy?  Where is the place for rainbows & romance?  Why is everyone always fighting?

Did you know that after WWII there was a down swing in superheroes and Jack Kirby & Joe Simon came up with something called Romance Comics.  Ok, ok they were a little sappy, a little “Oh Jack, I love you so” (eyes fluttering in the background.)  They were a bit anti-feminism but they were filled with sex, mystery, and soap-opera style stories.  They were a HUGE hit.

After the war people wanted more in-depth, personal stories, more fantasy but not the kind that comes with powers and wear tights–no the kind of fantasy that sometimes is just as hard to get, romance.  (Ironically, this is also the time of Horror Comics but that is a different story.)  Jack & Joe took their ideas from places like confession magazines (think Weekly World News, but Bat-Boy gets the girl) and headlines and real-life. By the way, these comics said right on them that they were for a more “adult” audience.  What happened to adult comics?  I guess that is another story as well….

Once these two started the genre many more jumped on the band-wagon and there were hundreds of Romance Comics by the 1950’s.  There were all kinds of stories, sometimes there was a love triangle (think Wuthering Heights,) sometimes they were a little more risque, there were even ones that dealt with women reaching out of there traditional roles, and dare I say the word, feminist. They weren’t all sunshine and rainbows but they were something completely different. They were even outselling the superhero comics and the confession magazines themselves.

And then came the Comics Code, in order to get the ok, they watered down the stories, took out the sex and violence and made sure that the women always wanted to fall in love and get married (then have sex… in that order.)  You might not be surprised to realize that it killed the genre.

That being said things are more open now (at least a little) so where are the Romance Comics?  I don’t know about you but I read a TON of romance novels and I would read romance comics but where are they?

There are actually some around mostly in Manga & Erotica and mostly involving fantasy of some sort.  One of my favorite novel authors, Laurell K. Hamilton, has a graphic novel series going of her books based on vampires but they are pretty cleaned-up compared to the novels (lots less sex and violence.)  But, there aren’t too many stories that are solely romance.  Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise would fit but he ended the series a year or two ago. That leads into another area where romance is still a predominate genre, gay/lesbian comics.  For some reason we are more comfortable exploring love and romance if we are gay. These comics have the variety that was there in the 50’s but have changed the partners.

I’m sure there are more out there, I just don’t know about them. So for Valentines Day, go out and find your girl a nice Romance Comic to curl up with.  Maybe snuggle in and read it together over some chocolates with a fire burning in the background.

[For more information on the portrayal of women in comics (romance and otherwise) check out Trina Robbins book From Girls to Grrlz: A History of women’s comics from teens to zines.]

Kristy Miller

VP, Development

Hi-Fi colour design