Yee-Haw!

One of the best things about Golden and Atom (ugh) Age comics is that publishers tried everything. The thought up 100 different things, mixed and matched, threw them against the wall, and sometimes things stuck (Strange Adventures) and sometimes they fell to ground never to be heard from again (Camera Comics).

When romance comics started to sell, publishers quickly combined them with another popular genre -- Westerns.

(I have never really seen the appeal of the Western, whether in comics or other media. Other than a few Sergio Leone films, I've haven't been really interested in the stuff, and even Western "literature" like Cormac MacCarthy bores me to tears. And don't even get me started on Lonesome Dove and its ilk.)

Westerns had been popular in comics since the late-30s (Western Stars), and in the 40s, with Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, Tom Mix and others gracing the movie (and then television) screen, it became even more popular, as many publishers, most notably Fawcett and Dell (Western) put out dozens of titles. Heck, Charlton even published the fantastically insane Space Western Comics.

So you'd expect that romance and Westerns would eventually meet, and they did, with such titles as Western Love, Cowboy (and Cowgirl) Romances, and Romances of the West. Most of them featured stories of either good cowboys conquering the villanous rancher and winning the love of the gingham-wearing girl or the occasional tom-girl who ropes her way into romance.

Few of the titles ever lasted more than a handfull of issues, and non for longer than 15 issues.

If only someone would've thought of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman 40 years earlier.