Love That Comes Right at You!

I hate 3-D movies.

Having worn glasses most of my life (save for a few years where I thought the only way to impress a lady was to be sans specs), the cumbersome 3-D glasses were a gigantic pain in the ass, and I was never really able to see the the effects up on the screen. While others would back away as the deadly monster came running toward the camera, I merely sat there and tried to not get a headache.

According to this site, the big 3-D movie craze began in 1952 with Bwana Devil (an Oscar snub like no other). The next year, 27 3-D movies were released (the most famous being House of Wax), and in 1954, 16 were made. By '55, the fad had blown over, and only 1 (Revenge of the Creature) was released. (I remember watching that film on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York some time in the early-80s; you had to pick up the glasses at local Burger Kings.)

Not to be outdone, comic publishers went 3-D nuts. In 1953, several dozen were published, including several great comics from St. John's featuring Joe Kubert art, and in 1954 EC joined the ranks with two comics featuring 3-D versions of some of their already published stores. (Ray Zone has a great Web site explaining this whole phenomenon, and he was also instrumental in the 80s 3-D comics revival.)

There were a couple of 3-D romance comics -- 3-D Love and 3-D Romance, both put out by Steriographic Publications, with art by the team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. (I have a copy of 3-D Love, a gift from the wife, natch. It's an average comic, but the claim that it "the ageless story of love in a new dimension" makes it worth the read (or, in my case, trying to read -- just like movies, my eyes and brain don't really "get" the whole 3-D thing).

The 3-D process was expensive, however, and having to include those cardboard glasses in every copy surely put a crimp in profits, even considering the comics were usually 25 cents instead of the then 10. After '54, there were no 3-D comics published until the '80s (and more to the point of this blog and this ever-expanding entry, no more 3-D romance comics).

ACG had a different idea when it came to 3-D, however. Beginning in on of its horror titles, Adventures into the Unknown, they featured something called "TrueVision", a technique where each panel in the comic would have something extend beyond its border, giving it the feel of three dimensions, but in color and, as the cover bragged, "no glasses."

There were only a handful of TrueVision comics published by ACG, including three issues of Lovelorn. I have only one of them; they're pretty collectible and very expensive (my copy was the most I've ever spent on a romance comic, and likely the most I ever will).

But while the effect on horror or war stories may have been exciting, with romance it was pretty boring. I mean, do you really want the kiss to come right at you? (The lone TrueVision story in Lovelorn #49 features circus performers who fall in love, get injured, think they're going to lose one another, get better, and live happily ever after. Sweet, eh?)

A typical panel shows something -- in the case here hair or tree branches -- breaking through the panel border into the black background (which was, I suspect, for the effect of being on a movie screen). See how it gives the image of the drawing coming out at you. See it? See?

Yeah, me neither.

I can't complain, however. The whole "no glasses" thing gives it a leg up on the competition.