Halloween Romance - Love Potion

There is a crisp in the air, the leaves are falling from the trees, and I am addicted to candied apples! It must be Halloween time!!!

Besides the Gothic romance titles like The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love and The Sinister House of Secret Love, there isn't much in the way of Halloween or scary stories in romance comics. However, I was able to dig up this little yarn -- "Love Potion" from Heart Throbs #137 (January 1972) concerning the dark arts!

"Love Potion" begins with one of the coolest splash pages around (dig that story title font!) and a scene from a play as performed by classmates Shirley and Walter. You see, Shirley really likes Walter, but the moment they are off stage, he turns cold. Shirley has tried everything to make Walter fall in love with her -- everything except witchcraft that is!

After much coaxing, Shirley decides to listen to her friend Rita -- a practitioner of black magic. Having caved, the reluctant Shirley heads to a meeting with Rita's coven to try to put a love spell on Walter via his handkerchief.

I think I might go as Rita the Witch for Halloween this year.

After the strange encounter, Shirley goes home to finish performing the rest of the "secret rites," in hopes that Walter will somehow be affected by the magic induced by the coven of teenage witches. Almost immediately after covering the telephone with Walter's handkerchief as instructed, the spell seems to work!

Understandably excited and on edge about the whole witchcraft thing, Shirley asks Walter what made him call her that very evening in the first place. As luck (or magic?) would have it, Walter was trying to expose the witchcraft groups for a story in the school newspaper and got so busy with gathering the scoop, that evening was the first chance he had to call her! What a spooky coincidence!

I hope you enjoyed this cute little Halloweenesque story and that you will be sure to join me later in the week for a look at an issue of DC's The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love!