Latino/Spanish Artists at Charlton: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (3) - For Lovers Only 68

The December 1972 issue of Charlton's For Lovers Only (issue 68) has a beautifully illustrated tale entitled "A One-Sided Affair". Garcia-Lopez's art is fully mature in style, and fortunately the story is not too bad either, simple but okay. Charlton used the splash page from the story for their panel cover, not surprisingly actually, because the artist really knows how to draw a beautiful woman.

As seems rather typical for these late 60s/early 70s romance stories drawn by Latino/Spanish artists, we're not looking so much at lower socioeconomic communities. Although the protagonist, Eve, is a secretary, she works for a firm of architects, and mixes with educated professionals. The scenario is also somewhat realistic and also something you'd expect from a romance tale. The ending is satisfying - our leading lady gets her man, without there being a big fuss made by her girlfriend, with whom her heart throb has been dating for some time in a relationship that wasn't going anywhere. I like the use of the girl's diary again - I'm surprised this was put in For Lovers Only instead of Love Diary. This is just a really nice looking comic, with a great piece of artwork by Mr. Garcia-Lopez. A collection of his Charlton romance stories would make a nice book I think.

Beautiful work, great artist!

Latino/Spanish Artists at Charlton: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (2) - Love Diary 57

The 8-page story, "This Fantastic Man", in Charlton's Love Diary 57 (December 1968), is an earlier example of Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez's romance work for the company. Again some lovely, atmospheric panels by the artist, who knows how to draw lovely ladies and good-looking guys. Again we see an example of Charlton re-using interior artwork for the cover, this time the splash page. They weren't the only ones to do this, however. This was a common practice in DC romance books in the 60s, Marvel as well. The story is very simple - girl with a history of failures at romance gets a change of scenery and things start to go differently. In the end it all works out for her and she finds the love she wanted all along. I like the way the story includes an actual love diary written by the protagonist. Some beautiful panels - page 4 has some particularly nice examples. Very European-looking cars, stylish clothes, I like the braided hair. Nice backgrounds - just all very pleasing to the eye. These Charlton romance stories by Garcia-Lopez have made me really appreciative of his work.

Next post on Out Of This World - another Garcia-Lopez romance gem, a later one, from 1972.

Latino/Spanish Artists at Charlton: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (1) - Just Married 74

The December 1970 issue of Charlton's Just Married (#74) features a 10-page story about a young couple possibly approaching divorce. The cover is one of Charlton's thrifty collage covers made up of panels of interior artwork from this particular story. The title "Why Am I Here?" reflects the confusion and uncertainty the wife feels as she arrives in Reno to meet up with a divorce lawyer. This, and the other Charlton romance stories by Garcia-Lopez that I have in my collection, really make me appreciate this type of work produced by this well-known artist, the bulk of whose material appears in DC superhero books. To me, this romance material is of superior quality, possibly because it was earlier and he had more time. But looking at his later stuff you can see an evolution towards a more stylized product, a bit like the way Alex Toth's earlier work was more realistic while his later style more 'cartoony' - different, simpler. The story is quite solid, and revolves around the misinterpretation of the husband's actions - his wife believes he has fallen for a young woman whose own husband runs around on her. On the verge of going through with the divorce, she sees the truth - her husband was indeed just helping an unfortunate - she hadn't given him the opportunity to explain what was going on, and was rather ready to jump to a certain conclusion - the kind of uncertainty about a spouse that one might expect early on in a marriage. To be fair, though, he could have handled the situation a lot better, and done more to ensure his wife wouldn't be put in such a difficult situation where she didn't know what was happening.

I like the underwater kiss, the lighthouse panel, the review of how the couple got together, gorgeous 'reflection on a pillow' panel on page 6 of the story, nice clothes, beautiful lady, handsome guy. Very nice.

A couple more examples of this stage of Garcia-Lopez's career drawing Charlton romance stories will be featured in the next couple of Out Of This World posts. Sequential Crush has also featured José Luis García-López in a couple of posts, including an interview:

Love Diary 56 (October 1968)

Interview