Falling in Love #95
November, 1967Story One: Meg sees a dude from across the room and falls instantly in love, and she knows that he's fallen for her with one look as well! Man, is it just me, or was romance apparently much less complicated in the 1960's than it is now? It's just like elves recognizing each other in
Elfquest. One complication here: Meg's younger sister Kitten gets it in her head that she's going to win the guy. Meg decides she's going to beat Kitten to the punch, so she goes on the offensive, tracking down the guy - name of Dave - first, and wrangling a date out of it. Meanwhile, Kitten is making her own moves on Dave, and talking constantly about Dave and whatever. So Dave shows up for the date - with Meg - and Kitten is devestated, because Meg never once even mentioned she was interested in Dave. The whole sister warfare thing was going on inside her own head.
Dave and Meg go out, and Meg suddenly realizes what a complete ahole she was to her sister. Meg insists that Dave take Kitten out on a pity date instead. Dave does this, but when they return, Meg learns that Dave just used the date as an opportunity to disabuse Kitten of any notion she might have a chance. Kitten pretends to be okay with this, since it means Meg's happiness, and Meg and Dave get it on, secure in the knowledge that they have effectively wrecked the heart of a young girl for no good reason at all other that petty jealousy. THE END!!
Story Two: Oof. Denise is a successful model in the big city. She returns to her home town to revel in her success, but her fun is dashed when she runs into Simon. Simon, you see, was once her true love, but a girl named Laura stole him away, so Denise fled to the city. Now she's back and she realizes she still has feelings for Simon. She flees again! But only into the woods; the city is a little too far away this time. Simon comes after her and reveals he wants her back! But Laura overhears him and runs off, weeping. Denise tracks her down and is like, you know, I came here to steal Simon back, but now that I have, I've suddenly realized he's a no good bum. And now that you know it too, we can both go live our lives without worrying about Simon messing them up! Denise pats herself on the back for doing Laura a favor and returns to the city. I wonder how Laura feels about this "favor?" Doesn't matter! THE END!!
Story Three: Jean is another girl who has fallen in love with a guy without ever even talking to him, and as always, she's too shy to talk to him. I was about to ask why I never meet girls this easy, but the answer is obvious: because they're too afraid to talk to me. Dammit! The object of her affection is a dude named Billy. So she decides to get the next best thing: a dog, which she names Billy. One day, walking past Human Billy's house, her dog runs off and starts doing it with Human Billy's dog! Jean and Human Billy decide the dogs have the right idea. See how easy that was? THE END!!
Story Four: Ah, the cover story. So, Lisa is a dowdy homebody. But one day, she wakes up to realize that somewhere along the way she sprouted some top shelf breasts, and suddenly, all the boys are coming to her yard. She falls in love with one of them, a guy named Peter. But she still finds herself flirting wildly with every dude she sees, because she's just so entranced with the powers of her new rocking bod. One of these guys comes over and starts making out with her - just as Peter arrives! The other guy quickly excuses himself, and Lisa explains that she's a bad person. Peter says, that's okay, because you're hot. And then they do it! THE END!!
Notes: Okay, I'll get to the stories soon enough, but we really have to start with the advice column this time, because my god, it is so egregious I don't even know how to react. A girl writes in to say that her boyfriend is constantly going on jealous rages, to the point where she's afraid to even look at other people, keeping her eyes on the ground at all times in order to avoid being screamed at by her enraged, possessive boyfriend. Carol responds by first asking if the boy might have had a bad expereince with a previous girlfriend who cheated on him, and if so, it's up to this girl to prove to him that she truly loves him. But if he didn't have a bad experience before? Well, then it's probably the girl's fault! "is it possible you are somehow responsible for the way he feels? Have you made him quite certain that you are honestly and truly in love with him?" So, yes: the fact that her boyfriend is emotionally manipulative and prone to controlling rages is her fault for not proving to him that she loves him enough!
WHAT THE HELL.
My god.
Anyway, at least Carol does one interesting thing this issue that doesn't involve victim blaming. At the end of the column, she has a little note that reads "I want to alert you to a brand new teenage magazine that's coming your way. It's called TEEN BEAT and it's absolutely the grooviest yet!" The weird thing is, this is not the magazine Teen Beat that we know, but a different magazine with the same title that came out at the same time. Not sure how that happened, but DC quickly changed the title of their series to Teen Beam,which makes no sense; theirs was cancelled, while the other Teen Beat was published for 40 years.
Okay, so the stories. We're just a couple issues in and we're already seeing some of the same familiar tropes. In the first tale we get a) sisters who are b) competing for the same man. We're going to see a lot of this! Sometimes it's best friends and not sisters, but this sort of crap happens a lot. And we also get two stories of women who fall in love with someone without even talking to them, and in both cases, the guy feels the same way (though at least in the second, he doesn't fall for her until they meet). This also happens a lot. Plus, there's the "happy ending" - no matter how downbeat the story is, the last panel always gives some kind of ray of romantic hope, even if it's small, or totally incongruous with the rest of the tale.
This issue's art credits, courtesy of GCD:
Story One: Jay Scott Pike
Story Two: Frank Giacoia and Bernard Sachs
Story Three: Nick Cardy
Story Four: Tony Abruzzo
Cover: Tony Abruzzo - as usual, the cover is also the splash page of one of the stories
That's a pretty good lineup of artists right there.
My Grade: C. The lineup of artists elevates a book that just doesn't have quite enough crazy to really make it stand out. Except for that advice column, which might be the craziest thing I've read yet. So terrible.