Love on the Racks: A History of American Romance Comics

Michelle Nolan

McFarland, 2008 - History - 229 pages

For the better part of three decades romance comics were an American institution. Nearly 6,000 romance comics were published between 1947 and 1977, and there was a time when one of every five comics sold in the U.S. was a romance comic. This is the first book devoted entirely to the rarely studied world of romance comics. The text includes information on several types of romance comics and their creators, plus the history, numbers, and publishing frequency of dozens of romance titles. The author examines several significant periods in the development of the romance genre, including the origins of Archie Comics and other teen romance publications, the romance comic "boom and bust" of the 1950s, and the genre's sudden disappearance when fantasy and superhero comics began to dominate mainstream comics in the late 1970s.

Contents

• Preface: 1
• What Came Before: 7
• How Teen Humor and Girls: 14

About the author

Michelle Nolan has been a newspaper and magazine feature writer for more than 40 years, working with such periodicals as Comics Buyer's Guide and Comic Book Marketplace. She lives in Bellingham, Washington.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Love on the Racks: A History of American Romance Comics
• Author: Michelle Nolan
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: McFarland, 2008
• ISBN: 0786435194, 9780786435197
• Length: 229 pages
• Subjects: History / General; Literary Criticism / Comics & Graphic Novels