Rarely Reviewed Comics - Young Love #126
As it turns out, this issue of Young Love that I happened to choose to review was (totally by coincidence) the LAST issue of the title.
Well, I have to say, while it may have been a loss in the sense that it served a particular niche audience, on terms of quality comic work, it was not a great loss at all.
One of the first notable aspects of the comic is that I really could not tell if the comic was all-new stories or not. They all APPEARED to be new stories, but I could not tell for sure.
The cover story, about the CB romance, was drawn by the great classic artist, Win Mortimer. Is he still alive? He was a great artist.
The CB story was weak.
The story is about a waitress who wants to become a trucker, and is having an "over the CB" romance with a trucker. Supposedly, the drama in the story will come from whether the guy is good looking, and whether he is willing to deal with her being a trucker.
The former is a weak plot point, and the latter is resolved very quickly, with barely any sense that it was a big deal at all.
Nice art, though.
You may have noticed the hilarious headline of one of the stories on the cover, "I Won't Kiss That Evil Way!"
Well, the story is just as silly as the title.
And the kicker is that the story was written by a young Tom DeFalco!
Really, it wasn't a terrible story idea, as it is a story that we are all familiar with - a woman is pressured to put out, and doesn't want to. That's fine. No problem there.
However, the way DeFalco HANDLES it, waaaay over the top. The lines of dialogue are basically just like the headline - "I Won't Kiss That Evil Way!!!"
Imagine if the guy had tried to cop a feel!!
There is a pretty straightforward story about a woman not wanting her daughter to get involved with a race car driver that falls apart with an IDIOTIC finale, which is so stupid that it would really work well as a SNL skit, as it is sooo ridiculous (a quick recap, the daughter is so distraught that she accidentally runs onto the race track, where the guy almost kills her, but manages to avoid her, but hits near the old man who is a friend and confidant of the race car driver - which removes the amnesia of the old man, as it turns out that he is the girl's FATHER, who was a daredevil who was presumed dead years ago, which is why the mother is so hard on the race car driver. You can't make stuff like that up! Well, rather, you SHOULDN'T make stuff like that up!)
There is a cute segment in each issue where a person writes in to say how they met. Paul Kupperberg handles the one-page story in this issue of how a magician fell for his substitute assistant, who he met for the first time during the act that night!
Finally, the one actually good story in the issue was a story that would never be told today. In it, a woman is jealous of her boyfriend's best friend, because her boyfriend spends so much time with him. Nowadays, obviously, this story would be quite different. In this issue, the woman is just mad at the best friend, but there is a nice little twist in the story, and it has a nice resolution. Good story.
However, one good story out of four just is not enough!
Well, I have to say, while it may have been a loss in the sense that it served a particular niche audience, on terms of quality comic work, it was not a great loss at all.
One of the first notable aspects of the comic is that I really could not tell if the comic was all-new stories or not. They all APPEARED to be new stories, but I could not tell for sure.
The cover story, about the CB romance, was drawn by the great classic artist, Win Mortimer. Is he still alive? He was a great artist.
The CB story was weak.
The story is about a waitress who wants to become a trucker, and is having an "over the CB" romance with a trucker. Supposedly, the drama in the story will come from whether the guy is good looking, and whether he is willing to deal with her being a trucker.
The former is a weak plot point, and the latter is resolved very quickly, with barely any sense that it was a big deal at all.
Nice art, though.
You may have noticed the hilarious headline of one of the stories on the cover, "I Won't Kiss That Evil Way!"
Well, the story is just as silly as the title.
And the kicker is that the story was written by a young Tom DeFalco!
Really, it wasn't a terrible story idea, as it is a story that we are all familiar with - a woman is pressured to put out, and doesn't want to. That's fine. No problem there.
However, the way DeFalco HANDLES it, waaaay over the top. The lines of dialogue are basically just like the headline - "I Won't Kiss That Evil Way!!!"
Imagine if the guy had tried to cop a feel!!
There is a pretty straightforward story about a woman not wanting her daughter to get involved with a race car driver that falls apart with an IDIOTIC finale, which is so stupid that it would really work well as a SNL skit, as it is sooo ridiculous (a quick recap, the daughter is so distraught that she accidentally runs onto the race track, where the guy almost kills her, but manages to avoid her, but hits near the old man who is a friend and confidant of the race car driver - which removes the amnesia of the old man, as it turns out that he is the girl's FATHER, who was a daredevil who was presumed dead years ago, which is why the mother is so hard on the race car driver. You can't make stuff like that up! Well, rather, you SHOULDN'T make stuff like that up!)
There is a cute segment in each issue where a person writes in to say how they met. Paul Kupperberg handles the one-page story in this issue of how a magician fell for his substitute assistant, who he met for the first time during the act that night!
Finally, the one actually good story in the issue was a story that would never be told today. In it, a woman is jealous of her boyfriend's best friend, because her boyfriend spends so much time with him. Nowadays, obviously, this story would be quite different. In this issue, the woman is just mad at the best friend, but there is a nice little twist in the story, and it has a nice resolution. Good story.
However, one good story out of four just is not enough!
posted by Brian Cronin at 8/07/2005 02:57:00 AM
3 Comments:
Where'd you find this?
Hehe, this sounds fab. How long ago was it published, Brian?
T: At the local comic shop.
1977, Gordon.
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