Number 2411: Black gold, broken hearts

The course of true love never did run smooth, as the Bard said. It is not only true in plays, but in every love story I have ever read, seen in a movie, or personally lived through in my life. Love comics are easy to understand because they are almost always about a young woman being loved by a fellow she rejects for another fellow, who turns out to be no good for her. She goes back to the first fellow. The stories always end with an embrace and kiss. Ah, love.

So “Black Gold, Broken Hearts” is a typical story, but has our girl Millie’s struggling ma and pa suddenly rich from the discovery of oil on their property! Millie can get rid of Tom Barrow, who loves her, and go to college. It seems her main interest in college is not a degree, but to learn to act snooty and put on airs to match the other rich gals. Doing that attracts Stanton Forsyte who appears to be as ritzy as his name implies. It all gets sorted out, of course, but in these love stories I notice the nice guy usually wins and doesn’t hold it against the girl, so he is a noble swain, after all.

Before reading the story, though, Romantic Adventures, which is the source, used to also include a page or two on how girls can avoid losing their love once they find each other. The pages I have included aren’t credited for writers, so I don’t know if they were written by a woman or a man. I opt for a man because of the whiffs of male dominance, but on the other hand, such things were taught to girls in days gone by.

From Romantic Adventures #58.

Two pages from Romantic Adventures #14.
“Black Gold and Broken Hearts” is from Romantic Adventures #58 (1958). No writer is listed by Grand Comics Database, but Kenneth Landau did the artwork, as well as the page, “100 Ways to Lose a Man,” above. No writers or artists are listed for the one-page advice fillers from Romantic Comics #14 (1951), “Pal or Sweetheart?” or “Dating Do’s and Don’ts.”

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