Girls' Love Stories #95May, 1963
Story One: The plash page is fantastic here. Before we even get into the story, we get a grade-A bodyslam. Check it:
I love the reaction from the blonde. "Ohhhhh, sick burn!"
So, Betty and Kay are co-workers and roommates. Betty has a secret crush on Dan, the guy who fills their water tank. But it's Kay who makes a move, getting Danny to go out with her. betty is crushed, but naturally, she doesn't breathe a word of her feelings. So she misses her chance, because soon, Kay and Danny are engaged. Betty takes little solace in all the other men she is seeing. It's Dan she wants, but Dan she can't have.
Kay gets bored with Dan, though, and starts running around behind his back. Betty finds herself having to cover for Kay. One night, Dan shows up to take Kay out, but Kay is already out with some other dude. So Dan asks Betty to join him instead. Through sheer coincidence - not likely - he takes her right to the restaurant where Kay is making out with her side guy! Dan delivers the smackdown shown on the splash page, and when Kay storms out, Dan reveals that he knew Kay was cheating on him. But he doesn't care, because he actually has been in love with Betty all along and only got engaged to Kay because Betty didn't seem to care for him. How about you fools try communicating? Just a suggestion! Dan and Betty make out. THE END!!
Story Two: Janet has a problem. She has a great boyfriend who loves her, and she loves him, but only kinda. See, she's actually smitten with Tom, the boy next door. Finally, unlike that idiot Betty in the first story, she just marches up to Tom and tells him she's in love with him. It seems a little weird given she's pretty much just been looking at him over a fence for two years, and he doesn't even know her name; he calls her Margaret right as she's revealing her soul to him.
But he's intrigued by the fact that she's in love with him, most likely because it means there's a good chance he can get some easy nookie. So they start going out, but she keeps dating Billy, because he actually gives a flying crap about her. Finally, Billy proposes. She tells Tom, and Tom is lilke, whatever. Best of luck to you both. This sends Janet into a frenzy, and she chases after him, declaring her everlasting love. Tom is all, yeah, I figured. And then he declares that she's going to marry him. Because being an arrogant asshat always wins out over being a nice guy. THE END!!
Story Three: Holy crow! This is fantastic - the main character of this story is actually a dude! This is a first right here, you guys.
Joe is a traveling inspector for a chain of department stores. Every town he goes to, he scours the phone book looking for his long lost dream girl, Dina Rogers. He's sure he'll never find her, both because she's probably married and has changed her name, and also because this crap is really difficult without the internet existing yet. Trust me guys, it's a lot easier now. I tried to find a girl I had a crush on in 8th grade a couple years ago, and 15 minutes later I was looking at a live satellite image of her house.
But poor Joe doesn't have the tools needed to be a really good creepy stalker. So he just uses the phone book. And he's in a bad way. See, he proposed to her, and she said no and then vanished into the ether. Anyway, one night, he's in a new town and he suddenly finds her name in the phone book. he cold calls her, and it's her! But she hangs up on him, claiming she doesn't know him. He rushes over to her house, and some rando blonde chick answers the door. Joe leaves, dazed - but then he sees the real Dina sitting on the beach down over there a ways. He runs over and learns the truth: she is still in love with him, but her pride didn't let her admit she had made a mistake not marrying him. Now she's engaged to someone else, and that stupid pride makes her think she has to go through with it. Joe is all, pride? Does pride taste as good as my tongue?! And with that, they decide maybe they should be together after all. THE END!! You go, Joe!
Story Four: Nina always plays second fiddle to her domineering younger sister Rita. Rita is always stealing her stuff, and then stealing her boyfriends. One day, Rita shows up with a new boyfriend of her own, Nicky. Nina falls in love at first sight, as one does. But she's embarrassed; every time Nicky comes around, Nina happens to be in the middle of something, with her hair up in curlers, or cleaning the house or whatever.
Finally, the day comes when Rita is away for the night when Nicky shows up for a date. Nina decides to flip the script; she dolls herself up and tries to steal Nicky away. But she sucks at it, and makes a fool of herself. She realizes she was wrong to even try, and runs off. But Nicky chases her down. Turns out he's in love with her too! Damn, that's some good luck there! THE END!!!
Notes: The expressions on this cover are once again priceless. But check out the size of the blonde girl's waist. Good god!
Omigod, we actually have full credits for this issue, including writers! Apparently DC's records happened to list everyone for this issue. Fantastic. The GCD credits:
Story One: script by Kin Platt, art by Tony Abruzzo
Story Two: script by Phyllis Reed, art by Mike Sekowsky and Frank Giacoia
Story Three: script by Lee Goldsmith, art by Arthur Peddy
Story Four: script by Robert Kanigher, art by Werner Roth and John Romita
Cover: John Romita
This is the second time we've had a story with Werner Roth pencils and John Romita inks, and both times the art has been fantastic. They make a really sharp team. Didn't Roth eventually move to Marvel and do some so-so stuff on X-Men?
It was a very interesting choice to have one of the stories told from the man's point of view. I thought it was a great departure from the norm. I wonder if there was some kind of market research that suggested they only have female protagonists?
This issue was also unusual in that there was a house ad for a non-romance title, namely Wonder Woman. They were obviously trying to draw the female readers into the superhero universe with Diana. I wonder if they had any success? I'm also curious if the fact that Robert Kanigher was writing for the romance books had any influence on hyping his Wonder Woman title. Here's the ad, from the inside front cover:
My Grade: B-. Elevated by the art, and by the story from the dude's point of view. That was a good story, too. The rest, eh.
