What do you think?
Rate this book
Romance Without Tears: 50's Love Comics with a Twist
A FIRST-TIME COLLECTION OF THE BEST ROMANCE COMICS OF THE 1950S. Four genres dominated American comic books in the 1940s and '50s: superheroes, funny animals, horror, and... romance. This revisionist collection of romance comics stories from the '50s challenges the cliche of the "tear-stained face" that later dominated the genre and became widely known and vilified as a tiresome icon of moral uplift. These bright, naturalistic tales (originally published by Archer St. John and written by unrecognized comics master Dana Dutch) are about high school girls who may be inexperienced but definitely have minds of their own: they choose their guys, not the other way around, and they use their heads in dealing with life's difficulties rather than waiting to be saved by some cardboard Romeo. They make all kinds of mistakes, learn from them, and hardly ever suffer. What kind of mistakes? Well, there's going out with a prude or a conceited jerk, of course. But also, improbably enough: Allowing themselves to be picked-up by strangers in a neighboring town; leading guys on with heavy petting; making nervous boyfriends check into a room as man and wife, as a gag after the car breaks down; lying to the folks and going on a "thrill" weekend in the big city; eloping with a couple of rough guys they met at a riverfront cafe and finding out after the marriage was consummated that it was all a sham... Well, okay, in that last case they did suffer, but it was a rare exception. Many of these stories are illustrated by Matt Baker, who achieved fame for his work on Phantom Lady and other sexy female characters in the '40s and '50s. His work for St. John is less known yet the most sophisticated and mature of hiscareer. Baker was a superb illustrator and a first-rate draftsman with a slick, urbane approach to contemporary material. In addition to the stories themselves, the book includes also 16 pages of Baker's luscious full-color covers. Romance Without Tears is edited by comics historian John Benson, who also contributes an introductory essay.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
2 people are currently reading
19 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 29, 2023
TLDR: Misleading title and extremely misleading introduction. These are not uncoventional romance comics with strong female characters. They're moralistic parables for teaching era teenagers to guard their reputations.
The long version:
I must have read a different collection then the person who wrote the introduction.
The introduction says the heroines in this book are not like other romance comic heroines. It says these girls aren't passive and don't sit at home crying over boys. They seek their own pleasure and experiences and are unapologetic about it.
The introduction also says or implies that these relationships are a good model for the reader, showing honest conversations between partners, parents who trust their children, and even if the girls commit indescretions they come out better and wiser for it at the end and aren't made to suffer.
That's not what was happening in the stories I read.
In the stories I read the girls are always punished for even the slightest indiscretion. They're shunned by their peers, their reputation sullied beyond any repair they can effect on their own. The only thing that ever saves them is the good fella they end up with. "I know the gang is being harsh to you right now, but once we start going out they'll quickly warm to you again," he says, and so it comes to be.
They might not feel guilt but they are always made to feel shame.
These stories felt much more moralistic than the Simon and Kirby stuff collected in the Young Romance anthologies. In those stories, sometimes the happy ending has the women in very questionable relationships but it still felt like they were treated with more respect and not talked down to in the way that these Romance Without Tears stories do.
The writer of the introduction seems to think these stories were a great model for its teenage audience but the lesson time and again is "Don't question convention or you will be punished." The writer of the introduction seems to think the fact that they do question convention at all is laudable and makes these stories unique among romance comics, but it just puts them in the category of any morality play since the Middle Ages. The heroine is tempted, falls, and is redeemed. It's not original and it's not interesting.
Far from being strong heroines capable of making their own choices and going their own way, the girls in Romance Without Tears have to be saved by their men again and again for even the slightest whiff of impropriety. They don't "extricate themselves from their predicaments", like the introduction says. They're rescued by some boy with a good reputation who can redeem them.
Barf.
Also for a book called Romance Without Tears that makes a big deal out of their heroines not crying, they cry in like 1/3 of these.
Additional lies from the introduction:
"[These stories] were actually filled with hidden messages that worked together to unfold a natural, healthy attitude toward young remember that rejected the standard myths and clichés."
"[These heroines] were equal to the situations they encountered, which did not lead to the destructive self-hatred that was often found in the genre."
"[They] extricate themselves from their predicaments."
"Dutch's girls never suffered, no matter what!"
What a disappointing collection.
The clothes were fun, though.
The long version:
I must have read a different collection then the person who wrote the introduction.
The introduction says the heroines in this book are not like other romance comic heroines. It says these girls aren't passive and don't sit at home crying over boys. They seek their own pleasure and experiences and are unapologetic about it.
The introduction also says or implies that these relationships are a good model for the reader, showing honest conversations between partners, parents who trust their children, and even if the girls commit indescretions they come out better and wiser for it at the end and aren't made to suffer.
That's not what was happening in the stories I read.
In the stories I read the girls are always punished for even the slightest indiscretion. They're shunned by their peers, their reputation sullied beyond any repair they can effect on their own. The only thing that ever saves them is the good fella they end up with. "I know the gang is being harsh to you right now, but once we start going out they'll quickly warm to you again," he says, and so it comes to be.
They might not feel guilt but they are always made to feel shame.
These stories felt much more moralistic than the Simon and Kirby stuff collected in the Young Romance anthologies. In those stories, sometimes the happy ending has the women in very questionable relationships but it still felt like they were treated with more respect and not talked down to in the way that these Romance Without Tears stories do.
The writer of the introduction seems to think these stories were a great model for its teenage audience but the lesson time and again is "Don't question convention or you will be punished." The writer of the introduction seems to think the fact that they do question convention at all is laudable and makes these stories unique among romance comics, but it just puts them in the category of any morality play since the Middle Ages. The heroine is tempted, falls, and is redeemed. It's not original and it's not interesting.
Far from being strong heroines capable of making their own choices and going their own way, the girls in Romance Without Tears have to be saved by their men again and again for even the slightest whiff of impropriety. They don't "extricate themselves from their predicaments", like the introduction says. They're rescued by some boy with a good reputation who can redeem them.
Barf.
Also for a book called Romance Without Tears that makes a big deal out of their heroines not crying, they cry in like 1/3 of these.
Additional lies from the introduction:
"[These stories] were actually filled with hidden messages that worked together to unfold a natural, healthy attitude toward young remember that rejected the standard myths and clichés."
"[These heroines] were equal to the situations they encountered, which did not lead to the destructive self-hatred that was often found in the genre."
"[They] extricate themselves from their predicaments."
"Dutch's girls never suffered, no matter what!"
What a disappointing collection.
The clothes were fun, though.
November 30, 2021
A good collection. There are some speech bubbles with issues of text legibility. So it's possible some issues may come up. Otherwise, I had a fun time checking out unique stories from this time of skirts and weird stories. The final story is a wild doozy of a time.
May 28, 2013
I must confess that at first, the dialogue of this graphic novel perplexed me a great deal. I kept thinking: 'Who the hell TALKS like this?" Ummm... (Mormon people? W.A.S.P.'s?) Honestly, it was pretty laughable. I also felt there was a great deal of subtext going on within these panels, if the author-- and the bio of this guy/the author, Dana Dutch reads like some kind of psychological profiling of a... a concerned uncle figure? A sublimated dirty old guy? I wasn't sure. Suffice it to say, these comics talk about 'kissing' but are all about 'Hey! Nice girls don't have sex before marriage!" But they also don't sit around crying if the guy of their dreams acts like a 'heel.' (Ahhaahaaahaa!) hence the title, Romance WITHOUT Tears, because this collection flies in the face of the typical (popular) Romance graphic novels/comics of the day, with every cover featured a beautiful young girl with exaggerated tears streaming down her cheeks, because some cad had 'done her wrong.' These comics/panels offer a completely alternative P.O.V. Strong young girls who stick up for themselves and put men in their place, asserting that in all actuality, they are perfectly fine without the specific love of one dreamy boy, because after all, there are plenty more (nicer, more RESPECTFUL) boys out there to choose, date, and ultimately, marry because lest we go too far, with this fiery independent motif, marriage and family were the ultimate message of this collection.
October 12, 2018
When I was growing up I'd always buy Archie comics, mostly for the clothes. This is really probably more of what I wanted; comics with female protagonists, taking their somewhat shallow lives very seriously (because that's what adolescence is!) I'm not sure I would have appreciated that at the time, since I was a very boring, emotionless teenager, but I appreciate them now. Interesting how gripping the stories can be given the circumscribed lives of the characters. I also like the sense of place in a lot of them - little towns where taking a trip to the next town over gives you an incredible sense of freedom, or the DMV area where elements of military life permeate everything, etc.
December 25, 2018
Lively, fresh, and engaging, with an informative introduction.
December 23, 2008
I was so looking forward to this as I'm kinda obsessed with romance comics since picking them up cheap cheap at comic stores over the years - and these stories by a particular writer are different and interesting. But the essay is all at the front so the context is lost during the individual stories and it just becomes and odd anthology instead of the illuminating read it could have been.
February 22, 2010
a collection of the stories written by Dana Dutch and published by Archer St John in the heyday of romance comics from '49-'55. Dutch's ladies, unlike the tear stained heroines of other stories, have character, self-worth, and common sense to boot. They are usually able to solve their own problems and may or may not end up with a man in the end.
May 1, 2008
I want to read more romance comics from the 40s & 50s! Especially those by Dana Dutch!
Read
April 12, 2011this book is hilarious, I love it! It's so interesting to see how teenage girls acted in the 50's.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews