Romance comics

Romance comics were one of five major genres of adult comics which boomed after World War II. For the first and last time, adult women were major consumers of comics. And although the genre is largely dismissed by comics aficionados today, it was created by two of the most revered artists and writers of the time: Jack Kirby (yes, always him!) and Joe Simon, who kicked off Young Romance in 1947. Success followed the pair into romance comics, and by 1949 there were 120 romantic titles on the market, most of which were intended for an adult audience. (In fact, comics with more explicit themes, which were very common before the code, often carried bright orange labels which read For the more ADULT Reader of Comics.) By 1950, there were 148 different titles, and by the mid-fifties pretty much every comics publisher was churning out romance comics. Changing mores, television, the Comics Code, and the decline of comics in general eventually combined to kill off the adult genres. D.C. Comics carried a few romance titles into the late '70s, but by then the heyday of the romance comic had long passed.