Number 1440: Be he Red...or be he Fed?

On Monday I showed a 1946 superhero story featuring a hidden communist city of gold. Here's a love story about a girl who falls for a Red.  “I Fell For a Commie!” is from Quality Comics’ Love Secrets #32 (1953). I posted this story a few years ago, but these are new scans.

Gladys Lynn is very dumb naïve. She falls in with a communist cell, complete with posters on the wall proclaiming “Stalin Wants Peace” and she doesn’t realize where she is until page 5. Her naïvete is all because she is blinded by love. Things are not what they appear to be with her commie lover, Tom, but I don’t want to give anything away.

Comic historian Jim Vadeboncoeur gives Charles Sultan credit for the pencils, but gives Dick Beck a ? as inker.

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Number 998





"...I lied to you, but it was only because I loved you so!"





Looking back on this story from a perspective of 58 years there is an awful lot wrong with the attitudes presented. High school girl falls in love with young teacher (hark...you can hear the faint music in the background, "Don't Stand So Close To Me" by the Police). They meet, make out, jealous boyfriend intercedes, true love prevails, and teacher promises to wait for her to graduate and then they can marry.



But what would land a teacher on the website Bad Bad Teacher, or prison, wasn't always against the law. A few years ago in my home state the law raised the age of female consent to age 18 (from 14!) and the penalties are harsher for teachers caught with students. But that's now, in today's society. I guess we shouldn't judge this old time story, of a young teacher going for a pretty high school chick, too harshly.



Oh, what the hell, let's judge it. The horny teacher wanted to get some hot young stuff. The story ended on a happy note, but I'd be interested to see how he felt when the girl graduated. He might have "changed his mind" or let on he was already married.



Artist unknown. From Love Secrets #35, 1953:















So that's a story of a 24-year-old teacher and an underage girl, but at least their ages were close. In this story from Avon's Romantic Love #22, 1954, the girl is in high school and the man is 45, and as she finds out later, controlling and married. Oops. Girls can be so dumb sometimes. In real life these scenarios repeat themselves over and over: naïve young girls falling prey to cunning older cads with seduction skills and no scruples. I'd tell you how I know about this but my lawyer has advised me against (wink-wink) self incrimination.

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Number 597


"I Fell For A Commie!"


You won't find many love comics in the Pappy collection, not because I hate love--on the contrary--but because the girls in many of the stories are so outrageously naïve. See how far into the story we get before Gladys realizes she's fallen in with a bunch of Reds.

This classic of a girl finding love in the midst of the Communist cell is from Quality Comics' Love Secrets #32, August 1953. Sorry, comrades, I don't know the artist.

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