...And the Winner Is!

Thank you to everyone who responded in the comments of the last post, concerning the Marvel Romance Redux line. It very enjoyable for me to hear the insightful and thought-provoking things you all had to say! Without further ado, the lucky winner of a copy of Our Love Story #11 (June 1971) is...

Mickey Quinn!  Congrats, Mickey! Please contact me with your mailing information!

I would like to take just a second here to state my position on the Marvel Romance Redux books and other similar concepts. As you can probably guess by now, I absolutely love romance comics. I have a deep appreciation for everything about them -- the stories, the art, the history. Over the course of the past 60+ years that the romance comics have been around, the notion of love and relationships has changed, but I am given hope in the basic message that true love exists -- for everyone.

Romance comics are an amazing snapshot of 20th century American history and culture. As modern men and women, I can understand how it could be hard to read the content of the romance comics -- making them easy targets to laugh at and dilute. Perhaps the snarkiness that is often thrown towards the romance comics is derived from a sense of being uncomfortable with these vestiges of the past?

So much attention is paid to the superhero comics that other genres like romance and westerns and funny animal books get left in the dust. Although these parodies are often condescending, if they happen to intrigue someone and inspire them to investigate the original romance comics, then I think that is a good thing. I applaud Marvel and others for not forgetting the genre entirely, but I do wish that the romance comics in all their beautiful and historic glory would be reprinted perhaps just a little more often. Since they are not super accessible (cost, availability, etc.), I hope Sequential Crush here has filled the void in an interesting, critical and yes, sometimes humorous (but never snarky) way!

Be sure to join me here tomorrow (Tuesday) for a new monthly feature that I am very, very excited about! Once you see what it is -- I think you will be totally jazzed too!