A Month of... Celebrities in Comics, Day 2: You're rocking up the wrong tree there, April

Hollywood starlet wanna-be April O'Day dreams of next-level love achievements Elvis Presley, Richard Chamberlain, and Tony Curtis!


Panel from "Midnight Cinderella" in Girls' Love Stories #109 (DC/National, February 1965), script by Robert Kanigher, pencils and inks by Bob Oksner
But the wah-wah-wahhhhhh reality of it all? When she goes to work she runs into Lorne Greene and Dan Blocker from TV's Bonanza.


Later, of course, as April's star rises, engulfing Hollywood in flames and burning it to the ground, she actually encounters major silver screen hearthrobs like Ernest Borgnine (be still, my beating heart!) and Rock Hudson (oooh, wouldn't he be a catch for any girl?!). I'm not certain who the guy in the middle with the surfboard is, nor why she is actually dating Jimmy Olsen.


It's rumored that April O'Day slightly changed her name and became Angel O'Day of the famous detective agency O'Day and Simeon. Motto: "We'll go ape to solve your crime!" The truth is, she later became Emma Stone.

Obsessive much?

Page from "Fight for the One You Love" in Girls' Love Stories #125 (February 1967), pencils and inks by Jerry Grandenetti

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 337: All I want for Christmas is you

House subscription ad for DC romance comics (1965); printed in Girls' Love Stories #110 (April 1965)

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 277: Whoa, whoa! Wait, this is something I never knew about Gwen Stacy and Liz Allan!

House ad for Young Romance #197 (January-February 1974); printed in Lois Lane #136 (January-February 1974)
Comic cover art; top panel: pencils by Jerry Grandenetti (?), inks by Vince Colletta; bottom 3 panels: pencils and inks by Win Mortimer
Ad designed and lettered by Gaspar Saladino

Comics Within Comics Month, Day 26: Love is like oxygen an onion

...because no matter how many layers you peel away, there's still more underneath! I shall demonstrate in this entry of Comics Within Comics that is too big for you to handle at noon, so here it is at nighttime when you can savor it fully. (Also, I didn't have it written at noon.)


Panels from "Down with Romance" in Heart Throbs #100 (February-March 1966), pencils by Don Heck
Hotchy motchy! That's a whole lotta DC romances photostatted into that rack in the second panel. Let me see if I can ID 'em all, which may take my mind off the sight of Dr. Don Blake browsing medical magazines at the newsstand.

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 269: Good thing they both used Ultra-Brite, the toothpaste with—ding!—sex appeal!

House ad for and printed in Love Stories #147 (November 1972)
Ad artist unknown, ad designed and lettered by Gaspar Saladino

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 204: Why I wish I lived in 1970 and had a buck twenty-five

House ad for Super DC Giant #S-17 [Love 1970] and S-16 [The Best of the Brave and the Bold] (both September-October 1970); printed in World's Finest Comics #196 (September 1970)
Ad designed and lettered by Gaspar Saladino

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 95

House ad for Secret Hearts #112 (June 1966); printed in Falling in Love #83 (May 1966)
Comic cover art: pencils and inks by Gene Colan
Ad designed and lettered by Ira Schnapp

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 45

House ad for National's Romance Group of comics; printed in Heart Throbs #75 (December 1961-January 1962)
Falling in Love #31 (December 1959) cover: pencils by John Romita Sr. (?), inks by Bernard Sachs (?)
Ad designed and lettered by Ira Schnapp