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.
