Friday, October 9, 2009

Young Romance #163

Young Romance #163 (On Sale: October 9, 1969) has a cover by Nick Cardy. This is pretty much the last decent cover this book will have as starting next issue Vince Colletta begins a long streak of butchering cover inks.

We begin with "Next Door to Love" drawn by Alex Toth and Ric Dano. I don't know anything about this Ric Dano guy, except that he would only ink three stories for DC and this is the first of them and looking at the work I would bet this is a pen name for Dick Giordano. As it says on the cover, this is a two-part story that will conclude next issue.

 Next is "Blind Love" penciled by John Rosenberger. We end with "My Father, My Love" drawn by Ric Estrada and Vince Colletta. I didn't know DC was doing incest stories back then.

Edited by Joe Orlando.

5 comments:

Jacque Nodell said...

What about #169? That one has a gorgeous cover!

-Keller said...

Actually, I stopped looking at 168, but I have now looked further and I would agree that 169-171 are all pretty good. I don't know who drew 169, but it is neat a clean looking. 170 is the Dick Giordano hippy chick in bell bottoms and 171 is a nice Don Heck piece.

Unknown said...

I preferred Vinnie Colletta covers to the ones that were illustrated prior to his joining DC. Perhaps superheroes weren't the best genre for VC but nobody drew prettier women or more romantic scenes. I seem to recall your making similar nasty comments about Colletta in the past, almost as if you have some grudge against him personally vs. artistically?

-Keller said...

What I have against Colletta is that he ruined about 25% of the comics I read as a kid. He was most of the time an absolutely horrible inked who cared not one damn about what he was inking. When he tried he was competent, when he was younger he was even occasionally good, but during his tenure at DC he was was, IMO, a hack and I can't help it that I physically winced every time I saw his inks, they are plain ugly and totally without merit.

I never met the man, I didn't know the man, I have no "grudge" against him except that he ruined so many comics I read in my childhood. Having sat in on panel discussions at comic conventions since 1976 I happen to know that the majority of comic fans, at least the ones that attend conventions, agree with me. We all pretty much hated the work of Vinny Colletta and the fact that he could, on occasion, ink a decent piece only proves that for the most part he was just taking the money and fucking over the fans.

You are free to disagree with me, but nothing you, or any of Vinnie's relatives say will ever remove the memory of the dread I felt as a child every time I opened a book that Vinnie butchered.

But you know, feel free to try and make it about something, can't think of what, else.

-Keller said...

I also find it interesting that you hide your profile. Dan, is that you again? If so, your uncle was a hack Dan. Get over it and grow up.