Simon & Kirby’s Groundbreaking Title Young Romance, Up for Auction

Posted in: Comics, Vintage Paper | Tagged: jack kirby, joe simon, Romance Comics, young romance

Long a magazine staple, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby pioneered the romance genre in comic books beginning in 1947 with Young Romance.

Comic book genres have sometimes risen to prominence on the success of a single title, and such was the case for romance comic books with Joe Simon and Jack Kirby‘s Young Romance in 1947.  When Time Magazine covered the romance comic book boom in 1949, it was already citing Young Romance as the originator of the trend, and comic book history has recognized the title as the first comic book romance series ever since.  It was one of those ideas that seems obvious in hindsight, but of course, it wasn’t obvious before someone did it. The modern romance magazine had been a staple of American newsstands for decades by the time comic books entered the genre in 1947. The romance magazine as we know it today (or at least, as we knew it for nearly a century) was popularized by the success of Bernarr Macfadden‘s True Story Magazine beginning in 1919. Street & Smith jumped into the fray in 1921 with Love Story Magazine, while Fawcett Publications launched True Confessions in 1922. In the wake of Simon & Kirby’s Young Romance, comic book publishers flooded into the field the next year, largely following the patterns of their magazine counterparts.

According to Joe Simon’s second biography, Joe Simon: My Life in Comics, Simon and Kirby believed in the title so much that they were willing to accept some risk to get a better deal from  Theodore Epstein and Milton Bleier, the publishers of the comic book line that is today remembered as Prize.  Instead of a page rate and a modest percentage of profits, Simon and Kirby would receive costs for producing the material plus 50% of the profits.  In his earlier biography The Comic Book Makers, Simon noted that he had been inspired by Macfadden’s original romance magazine. “I wondered how they [female readers] would accept a comic book version of the popular True Story Magazine, with youthful, emotional yet wholesome stories supposedly told in the first person by love-smitten teenagers. Visually, the magazine love stories seemed a natural conversion for comic books.”

The publisher best known today as Prize or the Prize Group was, in reality, a constellation of related publishing companies, including Feature Publications, Crestwood Publications, and Headline Publications, all originally owned by Epstein and Bleier.  The comic book line was named after its original flagship, Prize Comics, an anthology title that launched with the saga of Power Nelson, Man of the Future as its lead feature for the first several issues.  Young Romance would go on to become one of Prize’s most successful comic book titles, lasting at Prize for 124 issues from 1947-1963, and for an additional 83 issues at DC Comics from 1963-1975.  The first 12 issues of the run that have Simon and Kirby covers (with a few attributed to Kirby with other inkers) are the most sought-after of the series, with the title turning mostly photo covers after that through most of its first seven years, and only occasional additional comic art covers during that period.  Several of the best issues of the original comic book title Young Romance are up for auction in the 2024 February 29 – March 1 Golden Age Romance Featuring Fox Comics & Comic Art Showcase Auction #40258 at Heritage Auctions.

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