Discovered a new artist today. New to me, that is. One of the guys who worked on the next issue, Girl's Love Stories #113, is an old school Golden Age artist by the name of Manny Stallman. I've actually seen his art before, but never noted it, as it was some of his early work for Lev Gleason. 20 years later, he was doing genre work for DC, mostly on their war books but apparently also at least some romance stuff.

And let me tell you, his art here is really cool! It's very idiosyncratic, especially compared to some of the other DC romance artists; there's not exactly a house style, but there kind of is - the clean lines of Abruzzo, Romita, and Werner Roth. Stallman's stuff is much more free and expressive; some of the panels here are really fantastic. It's interesting that his art appears in the same issue as another Gene Colan story, because Colan's work is the closest to Stallman's that we've seen so far; both of them together makes for a really interesting artistic experience.

Very interested in seeing more stories from this guy. I'm surprised I've never heard the name before, if this is the kind of stuff he was turning out.

I'll have more when I get to reviewing the issue, but here's a look at my favorite panel from this issue - pure greatness here:

That would look great framed on a wall.

Girls' Love Stories #113

August 1965




Story One: April O'Day returns! She's still trying to land a big role in a movie, which frankly is kind of weird given that she's landed a big role in a movie in each of the previous stories. You know, for an ongoing soap opera, there doesn't seem to be much ongoing about this series. Case in point: Roy, her one true love from last issue, is nowhere to be found in this issue. Instead, April is now obsessed with a big time movie star named Tracy Trent. It's like Kabuki theater or something; every issue has the exact same elements, but they have no connection to each other and are arranged slightly differently to tell a new story.

Anyway. So, April spends her nights having Romance Comic Dream Montages about Tracy Trent, which gives artist Manny Stallman an excuse to cut loose with some fantastic panels:





Suddenly! Her dreams unexpectedly come true when the studio holds a publicity stunt where Tracy supposedly is hypnotized into sleeping, and only the kiss of a beautiful woman can wake him. Dozens of aspiring starlets are brought out to try and kiss him awake like Sleeping Beauty; naturally, he awakens when April kisses him, because she's had dream practice. This sparks a torrid affair in real life, which is marred by the fact that he's already in a relationship with superstar actress Mona Gay.

April tries to forget this niggling detail, but finally she can't ignore it, so she staggers out onto a deserted beach and lays down to die. But suddenly! Tracy shows up and kisses her. When she left him, he just then realized she was actually the girl for him, so he... I dunno, scoured all the empty beaches in the area looking for idiotic emo girls? Well, it worked, and they live happily ever after! THE END!!

Story Two: Karen is exasperated with her boyfriend Kenny. Why? Because he's an insensitive doofus. He's constantly standing her up, telling her off, and generally being a dink. For no apparent reason, though, she's in love with him and decides to marry him anyway. THE END!! Not much of a story here.

Story Three: A totally different Karen falls in love with Don. When she mentions marriage, though, he outright dismisses the entire concept of marriage as sheer idiocy. Yet somehow he can't figure out why she's upset. She breaks up with him. It sucks.

Until she meets Derek, that is! He's a big time lawyer, and good looking. Steady, smart, the kind of man you can settle down with. And he wants to marry her! One problem though: she's not actually interested in him, she's just going along with it because she thinks she should be. He proposes, and she breaks up with him. It sucks.

Until she meets.. well, a whole montage of other dudes that she's not in love with either. Man, that Don dude did a number on this chick. Finally, she ends up with Steve. The two of them can't stand each other, and spend all their time together bickering and arguing. They literally have this conversation:

Steve: I've never had a worse time in my entire life than the time I've had with you!
Karen: I was trying to find out what love is! Instead, I've discovered what hate is!

Yeah, I've had dates like that before too.

Naturally, they decide that they have both finally found true love, and they live happily ever after. Really. Talk about a recipe for disaster. THE END!!

Notes: Manny Stallman's art here is really interesting. It's much scratchier and moodier than most of the very clean DC romance artists. It is an interesting bridge in a way between the work of Gene Colan and Mike Sekowsky. He really cuts loose on the dream sequences, and on the money shot panels of people kissing and getting romantic. The other panels, where the storytelling takes place, are less accomplished. It makes for a strange reading experience, as the story goes along at one speed, and then hits you between the eyes with an unexpectedly fantastic sequence.

Speaking of Colan, he turns in another amazing art job. It's not perfect, though. If Colan has one consistent weakness for me, it's that he sometimes gets too weird with his panel layouts, necessitating little arrows to show you what order you're supposed to read them in. Colan did this his entire career. He must have known better, so I have to presume he was doing this intentionally for some reason, but I find it distracting.

There are more celebrity cameos in this issue; Alfred Hitchcock and Andy Williams are the stars this time. Among others; those are just the ones noted by GCD, but in the same panel there are two women who appear to be caricatures of actual people. I just don't recognize them.

The second and third stories are interesting in that both of them feature couples who dislike each other and don't get along. I wonder if this is intentional. Actually, it makes me wonder how these books were put together. With seven romance titles going at the time, DC must have been getting in tons of these little stories every month. Were they commissioned for specific titles? Or did they mix and match? This issue suggests to me that the stories were commissioned for this issue, because the stories are all weird lengths - 13 pages, 4 pages, and, 10 pages - so it would have been hard to fit them in with other normal length stories. On the other hand, as we saw last issue, they have filler like fashion pin up pages they can use to round out odd numbered stories, so maybe they did just mix and match these last two stories thematically rather than commission them to specifically go together in this issue.

My Grade: B. The excellent art elevates this issue.

Can you post a scan of that panel? Some of us here remember 1965 and might recognize them.

The blonde might be Debbie Reynolds.

And these two I am posting because I just loved the art so much.
The story was cute and silly.
But this art. <3
This will be my new avatar in a minute.