Girls' Romances #103 (For Lack of a Better Title)

To me, the DC romance comics of the 50s and 60s always looked very nice, and I use that word very much as a complement. They had very pretty (but not particularly sexy) women on it, and very handsome men either running after them or hugging them. They were emotive, but only of happiness or sadness: never anger. And they were full of bright, primary colors. Even in night scenes, there was something very alive about the covers.

Like I said, nice. Safe. Pretty.

Then, right around issue #100, something changed. Perhaps there was a new editor (I'll have to snoop around and do some research), perhaps they were just catching up to the mid-60s and realized that not everything still had to have the Donna Reed flair. But whatever it was, the colors began to be more garish (also in a good way), more alive. The dialogue became more rough around the edges. And so did the art. Even though it was still the DC stable of artists (joined by new-to-the-fold John Rosenberger and Gene Colan), everything stopped being so damn perfect. (If you don't believe me, check out the cover gallery over at the Grand Comics Database. Look at the pre-100 and post-100 covers.)

Issue #103 reminds me a bit of the monochromatic covers that Marvel did during that same period (you can check them out here), but the lack of any in-panel shading make it even more outlandish. And the dialogue -- "I never want... to see you again... after what you did to me!" -- is really very harsh. This isn't just an argument between two teenagers. This is something much worse. And she shows it, each panel getting sadder and sadder, more despondent, more depressed. And each color gets harsher -- yellow to orange to red.

Covers are meant to make you want to pick up the comic, and if I were browsing the racks in the summer of 1964, I think I would've picked this one up.

(The GCD attributes this art to Gene Colan, but I don't see it. To me, this is John Rosenberger, who has a similar style as Colan, but without the exaggerated fluidity, and while there is a Colan story on the inside [the cover story, "Too Late for Tears"], even Gene Colan's own Web site says that he didn't do the cover art.)