Undercover Archie

DARLING ROMANCE #1-7

(On Newsstands in Aug 1949 though November 1950)

Comic Books were booming business in 1949 and Archie Comics had competition from plenty of places with Buzzy, Candy, Frankie and Lana, Hedy De Vine, Joker Comics, Patsy Walker, and more.

None of them could touch Archie.

But two years earlier, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon’s Young Romance #1 (1947) had set the comic world on fire as the first ‘romance’ comic. Suddenly there was a comic on the stands that could appeal to guys AND girls.

(Young Romance #1 - 1947 - Jack Kirby and Joe Simon)

Tones of imitators followed including ‘Actual Romances’, ‘Love Romances’, ‘Love Tales’, ‘Lovers’, etc., etc. When MLJ decided to give the genre a try, they hit the stands with Darling Romance #1 in August of 1949.

Dig that Bettie Page hair-do, a couple of years BEFORE Bettie Page first started to appear in magazines! The contents page says ‘Cover Girl - Kevin Daley (Miss Army Day 1949)’

(from Darling Romance #1 - Aug 1949)

Hey! Everything in this comic is written by a female!

Wonder why they didn’t play that up more? Was MLJ way ahead of their time?

(from Darling Romance #1 - Aug 1949)

Most of the title pages were pieces of art unto themselves. The layout and design, the hook to pull you in... just great stuff!

(from Darling Romance #1 - Aug 1949)

Hey, one of these stories actually has an artist that thought to sign his name to the work… Bill Fix.

(from Darling Romance #1 - Aug 1949 art by Bill Fix)

And of course, teaching a girl how to do her make up is essential…

(from Darling Romance #1 - Aug 1949)

It may be a romance comic (and I’m ok with that), but… look at that architecture, the design of the page, the late afternoon shadow laying across the building… good stuff!

(from Darling Romance #1 - Aug 1949)

As melodramatic as most of the stories were (enjoyable, but not overly memorable), it was almost a relief when someone got killed!

(from Darling Romance #1 - Aug 1949)

$5 for each ‘Thrill of a Lifetime’ story from one of the readers! That’s like $48.35 in today’s dollars!

(from Darling Romance #1 - Aug 1949)

Darling Romance only lasted 7 issues, a little over a year, and by the time it got to the final issue they’d abandoned the photo cover and went with THIS little slice of headlight work.

(from Darling Romance #7 - November 1950)

Besides repeating the scene as the splash page, we also get more strangling from Daddy, at a nice provocative angle. It’s the last issue, damn the torpedoes!

(from Darling Romance #7 - November 1950)

Rebellious girl? Check. Tortured romance? Check? Abusive Dad? Check. Show some panty hose!

(from Darling Romance #7 - November 1950)

Wow! You can really tell things were ramping up pre-code, eh?

Even at MLJ… 

(from Darling Romance #7 - November 1950)

Holy Cow! Is that Peter Parker’s mom and dad? 

(from Darling Romance #7 - November 1950)

I swear, I could just admire these splash panels all day…

(from Darling Romance #7 - November 1950)

It took them 6 more issue for an artist to actually sign his name to his work… Sam Cooper! (He’d been around for years, even doing some Mr. Justice stories for MLJ!)

(from Darling Romance #7 - November 1950)

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