Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett takes a new look at romance comics.
 
If you write something like this for as long as I have you are certain to learn at least a few things, primarily, there's always something more to be said on a subject.  Which is why I always reserve the right to revisit a topic, like romance comics.  I really didn't think I was going to write anything else about them anytime soon, but then I started to think…

In a previous column (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Security Alert: Cooties in the Clubhouse") I made the case that "entertainment in the 21st century has essentially become unisex," the romance novel being the obvious exception proving the rule.  Of course, we can't rule out there also being a male readership for them--we live in a world that has Bronies in it after all.  If there's a male equivalent to the romance novel it's undoubtedly the paperback original men’s adventure series.  Which I was surprised to discover actually still exist.  They're now published by romance giant Harlequin and perhaps to be polite they call their Executioner and post-apocalyptic series "mysteries."

I used to think that the romance comic might have survived at least a little longer if they had switched over to a soap opera format.  But then of course Marvel tried just that in the mid-60's when they turned teen humor titles Millie the Model and Patsy Walker into soaps, though they used the term 'romantic adventure.'  Which is understandable seeing as how the term 'soap' was considered something of a pejorative back then, a form fit only for women, shut-ins and college kids.  But whether due to low sales or simply a belief there was more money emulating Archie those titles soon reverted back to their previous teen humor template.

'There is ample evidence, though, that a soap opera comic wouldn't have to be a dull, dry melodrama, you know, Mary Worth.  Classic Comics Press has been reprinting Leonard Starr's Mary Perkins on Stage, an amalgam of romance, humor and adventure with a show business backdrop that ran in newspapers between 1957 and 1979.  I just finished reading Volume 13, with strips from '74-75, which (coincidentally enough) is when I first discovered the strip in the pages of the sadly gone, but not forgotten, Menomonee Falls Gazette.  Which for the record was a weekly tabloid that back in those pre-Internet days was the only place comic strip fans could get access to a lot of new and story strips.  Anyone who has any interest in doing this kind of material should do themselves a favor and see how it's done by a world class writer and artist.

Of course, the viewership for soaps has been declining steadily since their heyday in the 80s, in spite (or perhaps I should make that because) of the fact that there are now elements of soap opera in everything from police procedurals to professional wrestling to superhero comics.  And though it has some of the elements of one, a soap opera isn't a romance; a romance has a definitive ending.  That’s the thing that differentiates a soap from a telenovela.  So maybe the romance comic could have survived by switching from several short stories to one book length one.  But since American comics seem to do best and are at their best when dealing with serialized material maybe a series of maxi-series under an umbrella title?

I honestly don't know.  But I think it's long past due some publisher tried something.

I have in the past given Marvel some grief for their anti-bullying variant covers (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Variation on a Theme").  I hate to quote myself, again, but I believe I said they had about as "much impact as when the Post Office issues a new commemorative series of stamps”.  So it's only right I acknowledge when they get it right (see "'Avengers: No More Bullying' One-Shot").

'And, finally, DC has been focusing so much of their attention on their revamp of Batgirl it's gone almost entirely under the radar that they’re doing something similar with Supergirl.  The only thing I had heard about Supergir #37 was it was going to have one of those great looking Darwyn Cooke variant covers.  But then I read with this issue the new writing team of Mike Johnson and Kate Perkins will create a new status quo where she attends Crucible Academy, a school for "beings of cosmic importance."  Which, frankly, sounds a bit too much like Hunger Games meets Maze Runner meets Harry Potter for my tastes.  But seeing as how she's a character I've always liked, slack will, once again, be cut for her.  I'm also mildly encouraged by the female co-writer on the title, but then the character has been so thoroughly toxic in her "New 52" incarnation that by definition almost any change to her has to be some kind of improvement.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com