Ideal Romance 005, August 1954

Well all, I've been on vacation and fighting some difficulties with my scanner(s) but I did get a chance to do some work in the golden age this week and also have some recent scans I haven't managed to get up, so here we go, let's see if I can post a few days in a row.



I love the colors on this cover and find it tender and sweet in spite of the fact that the gent that sold it to me advertised it as a "Chest Kissing" cover. Overstreet credits it to Bernard Baily. This is the first Key romance I've read, and I thought it was pretty good. The first story "Uncertainty" involves a couple that bump into each other on the golf course and quickly get swept into romance. After the gent proposes marriage, the protagonist discovers he was previously married when he calls his dead wife's name in the heat of a kiss. She becomes very jealous, eventually asking that he tear up the picture he always carries of his dead love. I kind of like how this one resolves...

The second story is "First Love" about a woman who marries a boring man and comes to think often of Eddie, her first love. I like the second page of this story, sort of an additional splash:



I've gotta admit, her inattentive hubby doesn't seem too sympathetic, and I'm not sure I buy the story's resolution. This gal doesn't seem to have a good way out of a dull existence.

The text intermission is a somewhat incoherent tale of class-hopping romance entitled "The Wandering Wallet of Love" (how's that for a bad title ;D).

The third story is "The Man I Love" and might be the most fun story in here and is signed by S. Finnocchiaro and E.E. Hughes (I've never heard of either). The story involves an aspiring model and her attempts to catch the attention of a model agency owner who realizes quickly how willing she is to gain success. A couple nice cheesecake panels in this one. I love her beachside tactics:




The comic's last story is "Too Many Lovers" about a dance team that finds love traveling the lower rungs of the dancing circuit. What happens when the team breaks up so our heroine can become a star? Can Stella get her groove back? Read and find out...

Get the scan HERE

Good stuff, I like the writing and will keep my eye out for more issues of this series (I'm especially after issue 6). This is the first issue scanned, the series started as Tender Romance in 1953 at issue one and switched to Ideal Romance for issues 3-8, ending in February of 1955.

Cheers,

Darwin