Husband-Hunting Tips

From various 1950s issues of New Romance I present as a public service announcement some really handy advice for those young women intent on pursuing romance with a steady beau all with the goal of getting hitched.

As all women know, good health is essential in maintaining your gene-derived, socially acceptable standards of good looks that are wholly dependent upon evolving cultural expectations! Sleeping with a window open for fresh air is a recurring theme in some of these old pre-Polio vaccine PSA's. Breathing in Radon and mold day and night is a general no-no so it's a good idea to have adequate ventilation. But it all depends on where you live. If you live in a universe where it is cool for a teen-ager to take their dad to a party and school yard gangs talk out their differences instead of popping caps into each other , then by all means, go for it. But where I live sleeping with an open window means you will probably wake up (if at all) with a crack-head holding a box-cutter to your throat as his buddy unplugs your TV.

Then of course girls must always appear cheerful! Nothing makes the boys shy away faster than a moody girl. Show a smile! Boys don't like girls that appear thoughtful or express emotions that don't compliment them. If maintaining cheerfulness is difficult on even the best days ask your mom how she does it. Many aids to happiness come in easily-obtained and affordable liquid or pill form.

Almost as important as good looks is the ability to not embarrass any males you have come into contact with! Be polite, deferential but have your wits about you. But not too much! Be careful, girls! If you appear too smart boys won't like you and instead of a home, hearth, husband and children to keep you warm at night it will be your hot tears staining the pages of a textbook on science!

Once you have all the basics down you can go on the prowl! Not having to work after high school is important for the modern girl! Time is a wasting! So get involved in all those hobbies that men enjoy but proceed with caution. Don't fully participate in sports and hobbies, LOOK ON ADORINGLY ONLY, or if that is not possible, ensure you take on the role of an accessory, like a tennis racket stand or gym bag carrier (but not too heavy a bag, you don't want big ugly muscles!). Take steps to ensure you don't intimidate a guy or show him up and faster than you can say "Holy Matrimony" you will be fulfilling your role as a wife, mother and homemaker!

And then it is HAPPILY EVER AFTER!

Love by Ondol's Light

Awwww. Burning charcoal makes him wistful.

Back in the day when serving in Korea the wife and I had to move out of one house heated by an ondol system, a series of heated pipes that run under the floors of a residence, due to carbon monoxide leaks. By regulations, U.S. service members living off the base were required to live in homes that had been upgraded to use heated water pipes in the floor instead of the more dangerous hot air systems that were notorious for leaking poison gas. One morning shortly after moving into our new apartment the wife and I woke up each of us with pounding headaches and nausea. After our IQ's returned to normal we decided "We're outta here." We discovered the landlord had lied about what heating system he had installed, being greedy for rent money. We were lucky we woke up at all.

The ondol heating systems may be behind the Korean urban myth of "fan death" that remains a concern primarily through fear-mongering by the media. In the public panic over illness or death that may have been caused by carbon monoxide poisoning it was often blamed on fans "stealing the air" or dehydrating sleepers. Most fans, even those sold today, have a timer that shuts the device off not to save electricity but to prevent death. That a fan is in the room of a person allegedly affected by a "fan death" is incidental. The fan death myth is persistent and even the skeptical blame it on dehydration and suffocation using rather shaky science to support their beliefs. But more than likely fans are blamed because one happens to be present in the room of the elderly or ill. more likely explanation that death through natural causes or carbon monoxide is ignored in favor of the scary idea that death can strike anyone, anywhere caused by nothing more than a gentle breeze.

The remote possibility may be that if a fan was involved in a death or illness at all it could have been from disturbing carbon monoxide gas that had settled under the floors from leaking heating pipes. It is possible the gas may have been disturbed by moving air from a fan that caused it to swirl and rise up through the floor to the level of a sleeping person who, in traditional Korean homes slept on mats on the floor, could then have then been in direct contact with the gas. Any "fan death" reports that had a basis in fact would probably have come from the passing of elderly residents in older style homes heated by older ondol. It is unlikely the one or two deaths per year attributed to "fan death" occur in modern homes with safer heating systems and are probably due to natural causes.

Don't Be Slutty, Girls!

Love Letters #10 (1951).

True Love Stories

You know it happened!

Here's the original: Lovers #76 (March 1956).

Dating is Fun!

Girl's Life (Nov 1954).

Champagne...Take Me Away!

Sweet, sweet alcohol dulling the pain since October 1958 from Falling In Love #22.

The Nights That Never Ended

This is a good romantic cover. The world outside of Michele and Dean's relationship is unimportant and ignored. One could interpret this as Michele focusing on the surprising presence of her supposedly deceased fiance to the point that he is her whole world. But what I think is really going on here is that she is also dead and stranded in purgatory but is not yet aware of her situation.

Overlay a different DC title header onto the original book and it easily transforms from a tale of heartbreak into horror. Michele is accepting of her dreary, empty existence until she unexpectedly reunites with her dead fiance and then reality begins to crumble. The world doesn't really exist except maybe as some ill-defined purgatorial construct of the heroine that will fade only when she realizes she and Dean will be together forever in the afterlife.

From Heart Throbs #92 (November 1964).

It's a thin line

I guess there are worse foundations for a relationship. At least hatred is more honest than marrying for money.

From Heart Throbs #90 (July 1964).

SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

Love Romances #98 (March 1962).

And the winner for Creepiest or Most Disturbing Art on a Comic Book Cover Ever goes to...

"YOUNG LOVE #74 from way back in June 1969!"

(clap clap clap clap clap)

"With us today is artist Nick Cardy, who drew what is overwhelmingly the most awkward cover scene ever to grace a comic book! It's a real work of art, folks! The nubile, emotionally distraught daughter with her breasts in her Father's lap, the pensive, thousand-yard stare of the father into the distance, legs crossed, arms frozen as if he was too embarrassed to move for fear of the discovery of a terrible, embarrassing secret. A true classic and I'm squirming just looking at it. How ever did you do it, Nick?"

"It wasn't easy. Presenting raw sexual imagery as something innocent and pure is a heck of a balancing act. Like most of my fellow artists in the biz we had a lot of experience sneaking questionable content past the CCA censors but the editor kept rejecting the preliminary sketches I sent him. He'd say: 'Too innocent! Not sexy enough! Too sexy, want to get me fired? Not enough innuendo! Too MUCH innuendo!' The cost of mailing all the artwork was nearly my ruin. We didn't have the internet back then. Human messengers actually risked life and limb running through busy New York streets to deliver the artwork on time! Some died, even, I'm told."

"But it was totally worth it! You had some stiff competition considering you were up against every comic published in the 1990s. All that hard work really paid off!"

"Yeah, I finally nailed the cover but I had to think about baseball a lot."

"Nick Cardy, folks!"

(clap clap clap clap clap)

Who Stalks Ann?

An entire generation of young girls thought this type of image was romantic. Boys learned how to behave partly from their exposure of things like this in the media. Pop-culture is not a How To guide.

Young Miss (September 1946).

Dry those tears, I'm gonna be rich!

Cool panel from a story found in My Own Romance #9 (October 1949). I cleaned up the panel, added fresh color and threw in some Benday dots for that nifty pop art effect. I think it came out pretty sweet. The original artist probably got something like less than $15 a page for the entire job. Yet like Lichtenstein, I am prepared to sell a print of this for hundreds, maybe thousands of times what the original artist was paid for the original work.

Art is cool.

Surfbunnies!

Young Romance #156 (Oct-Nov 1968).

Jerks

"We were in the neighborhood and thought we'd drop by to rub your nose in our happiness."

True Secrets #12 (December 1951).

Extreme Makeover

Going Steady #1 (September-October 1960). This is my new favorite romance comic book cover. Art by Joe Simon, who is totally freaking me out.

The Red Flu

A good number of employees called out today with what I have come to call the "Red Flu". The Red Flu is an ailment that typically lasts 24-48 hours. The symptoms usually express themselves as headache, nausea, cramps, chest pains and can be diagnosed as Red Flu Type A or Type B.

Red Flu Type A and B both are contagious annually on or about February 14th. Type A is largely psychosomatic as the illness subsides once the employee has successfully called out sick from work. Any discomfort vanishes completely by the time they step out for a party that promises plenty of hot, drunken babes or the dinner reservations are confirmed with that special someone.

Red Flu Type B is initially similar in the way it affects the employee, with the exception of the added symptom of uncontrollable sobbing, as the employee becomes truly ill once they come to the sick realization they are alone and unloved.

Happy Valentine's Day!

That breeze feels good

A bit less subtle than a sledgehammer message of morality for young impressionable comic book readers of a bygone era.

My Own Romance #31 (September 1953).

Johnny was an honorable man

Young Love #4 (August 1949).

Color Clues!

Here is a little arts and crafts project for all you fashion-conscious gals!

Click the picture to print and create your own ethnocentric personal rainbow! Show your work.

Hi-School Romance #11 (October 1951).

Suggestive Flowers

And could those Golden Age artists draw awesome hair or what?

Love Diary #1 (September 1949).