A little late for Valentine's Day, but "love waits for no one" as they say. Not discussed as much as super-hero, horror or war comics, romance comics have had their moment in the sun -- or in this case, the shadows -- numerous times since their inception with Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's YOUNG ROMANCE (Crestwood, 1947). The mid-1970's were another period where romance -- especially the Gothic kind -- were again briefly popular, due in large part I suspect to the Gothic/horror soap opera DARK SHADOWS.
Not to be outdone by DC's THE DARK MANSION OF FORBIDDEN LOVE and THE SINISTER HOUSE OF SECRET LOVE or Atlas/Seaboard's GOTHIC ROMANCES (Marvel came later with their magazine, GOTHIC TALES OF LOVE), Charlton jumped in with HAUNTED LOVE. Edited by the steadfast George Wildman, the stories -- while usually pretty good -- were helped by the talents of Tom Sutton, Nicola Cuti, Joe Staton, Pete Morisi, Steve Ditko and others.
HAUNTED LOVE lasted for just 11 bi-monthly issues, from April 1973 to September 1975.
HAUNTED LOVE (TALES OF GOTHIC ROMANCE)
Vol. 1 No. 1
April 1973
Charlton Press Inc. (Charlton Comics)
Editor: George Wildman
Cover: Tom Sutton
Pages: 36
Cover price: 20 cents
CONTENTS
"Eternal Teacher"
Script: Nicola Cuti
Art: Joe Staton
"A Kiss to Save Him from the Grave!"
Script: Tom Sutton?
Art: Tom Sutton
I simply adore this early era of Staton's artwork. He will move away from it for a more rambunctious style, but his early stuff for Charlton has a nubile charm. Tom Sutton is an overlooked master. I'm just discovering some of his work for Warren that I'd never seen all these years. Awesome.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm not mistaken, while many artists evolved and improved on their style, Staton's seemed to morph into an entirely different one -- a bit more refined? In any event, I like them both and some of the work he did in the style shown here I liked in his Charlton horror books. I seem to remember one story where he caricatured Lovecraft and it's one of the simplest -- and best I've come across. As for Sutton, he was just so versatile. Give him a story and he'd do it with his trademark flair.
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