The Friendly Skies: Young Romance 127 - "Another Face, Another Love"

Although I have a number of these Bonnie Taylor comics in my collection, I don't have this one, the scan of which I received from another collector. The Bonnie Taylor story suggests what life is like for a woman constantly on the move in the job of an airline stewardess. Drawn by John Romita Sr. and written by Bob Kanigher, it represents the product of a high quality team working for DC at the time (mid-1960s).

'Career girl' or 'working girl' stories are fairly common in romance comics, and tended to highlight the 'career-love dilemma', most amply demonstrated by nursing romance comics, numerous examples of which can be found on this blog. In comics, nurses were exposed to an endless barrage of handsome and/or wealthy patients, as well as doctors and interns. For airline stewardesses it was passengers and pilots that provided the potential love interest, or handsome strangers in the many ports of call.

By the 1960s, Charlton Comics were the principle purveyors of career girl romance stories, with numerous nursing romance books as well as Career Girl Romances itself. Marvel adapted their previously more cartoon-like and humorous Millie the Model and Patsy Walker titles, making them more like romance titles, and DC took the bold step of orienting some of their romance books to career girls, creating ongoing features about specific characters. In Young Love it was Mary Robin, RN, also produced by Kanigher and Romita, Sr., and in Young Romance it was Bonnie Taylor in her very PanAm-ish blue uniform.

Interesting studies can be found on the traditional airline stewardess of yore. Come Fly With Us! A Global History of the Airline Hostess, Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants, and Working the Skies: The Fast-Paced, Disorienting World of the Flight Attendant are some good examples, as well as the well-researched but unfortunately canceled TV Series Pan-Am. Of note on the cover of Young Romance #127 above, the first issue to feature Bonnie Taylor, is the caption that reads, "Meet Bonnie Taylor, the lovely airline stewardess, who flies in and out of romantic adventures," suggesting that Bonnie's relationships are unlikely to be long-lasting.

Just as with the Mary Robin, RN stories, these Bonnie Taylor romances are written as a kind of diary. In Young Love the Mary Robin stories actually take the form of a diary written by Mary, but with Bonnie Taylor it is more like she is the narrator of her own tale detailing the euphoria and heartache of her fleeting encounters. So here's the story that introduced Bonnie Taylor to the eager 1960s readership of Young Romance:

 

   

It's interesting that Bonnie is definitely on the look out for romantic opportunities. Also interesting is the implication that Bonnie's job will drag her away from any romance she does find. In the case of the Captain, she lost out to a girl who is located in one place. The good old career-love dilemma for the working girl.

Nurses At War: Young Romance 78 - "Army Nurse"

It took me some time to get this book. These Simon and Kirby post code issues are fairly tough to find. The cover is directly related to the nurse romance story that I am interested in here, set in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Korea. The art is by Argentinian artist Jo Albistur (signed).

In "Army Nurse", the nurses all love Doctor Roy, but the Doc only has eyes for one of them, and that's Joyce. He's been preparing to pop the question, and does so after a hard day's work. Joyce is over the moon to be engaged to her dream boat.

For some reason Roy keeps quiet about why he seems to always be giving Ruth Duryea assignments to work with him. Sure, he gives some plausible explanations - she's new and needs the training - but it doesn't quite all add up. Suddenly Joyce is snapped out of her jealous fog by the news that Roy's aircraft has gone down, and he's hurt. Joyce immediately volunteers to be the nurse to travel to the crash site. On the way the flak from the North Koreans almost makes her wish she'd stayed back at the camp, but she gets there to find Ruth tending to her intended. This is a bit much for her to take, and she removes her engagement ring from her finger and slips it into Roy's pocket, her dream perhaps over. Setting aside her jealousy, Joyce does the needful. Back at the M.A.S.H. Roy is operated on. However, afterward Ruth flies in and is assigned to the care of the wounded. It is then that Joyce discovers something that changes the whole picture.

Ruth has no romantic inclinations towards Roy. She's already married to the injured sergeant, secretly, because it's against regulations. Doctor Roy Nelson knew and has been covering for them. Joyce realizes what a chump she's been and fumbles in Roy's pocket to get her ring back. He's already ahead of her though, having found the ring there himself. He sees that his position, surrounded by a flock of marriageable, lovely nurses makes life difficult for Joyce, and so he prescribes the only reasonable cure - a wedding.

I like this artwork by Jo Albistur. I think I have another example of his work somewhere. He's mentioned on the Simon & Kirby Museum blog. It reminds me somewhat of Al Williamson's work. The image of nurses presented by this piece include the usual - aspiring for romantic involvement with a doctor, bitchy rivalry, they're all pretty in their nicely starched white uniforms and caps. These are nurses at war so there's bravery and willingness for self-sacrifice. Nice switch to the blue uniform for going out into the battlefield. Ruth Duryea is a redhead for the cover but blond in the story. Panel 7 on page 5 looks like it was intentionally drawn to match the cover, and is a little out of Albistur's natural style as a result (the cover looks Kirby or Simon/Kirby to me).

Inter-Racial Hospital Romance: Young Romance 194 - "Full Hands Empty Heart"

The July/August 1973 issue of DC's Young Romance features a tale of inter-racial love in a hospital setting. It's interesting that it's an anti-racist piece again written by Bob Kanigher, this time illustrated by John Rosenberger and Vince Colletta. African American Nurse Phyllis Carter is a gorgeous but single woman, lacking confidence that she will ever find a partner to love her. She even helps other couples get together, like the wheelchair-bound lovers at the hospital, who provide a brief reprise of DC's phase of increased disability awareness. But then out of the blue she falls straight in love with a doctor new to the hospital, when she finds herself assisting him with an emergency.

 

While not a problem at all for these two love birds, the fact that they are representatives of different racial groups doesn't sit well with their respective sets of friends, nor with the rest of the hospital staff. The couple go through their own version of Columbia's "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?" (Sidney Poitier, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton, 1967).

 

The story gives a sense of the strength of the couple's love, that continues despite hostile social environments everywhere they go. Tragically, it comes to an abrupt end when Phyllis's doctor takes a knife thrust to protect her from a drug-crazed patient she's caught trying to steal medications. As sometimes happens, the knife gets something vital and the doctor expires in the arms of his love. Poor Phyllis has just lost her life as well, and dazed but in an angry phase of grieving, she doesn't hold back in letting the prejudiced staff know her feelings - "We're finished. Are you satisfied now?" But her boyfriend's last wish was that she didn't go sour on the world, and quickly she composes herself and morphs her anger into a philosophical stance with the line, "If we don't learn to love each other, the world will always be a jungle!"

Phyllis's parting line, as she accepts her loss and walks off to continue tending to the sick, is, "In some worlds there's no color, only people..." Although this stance is sometimes criticized nowadays for being color blind and non-PC, I don't equate color blind with culture blind, and I don't think the intent of this story is to negate appreciation for different cultural groups within society. I think Kanigher, through Phyllis, is saying that skin color isn't a criterion by which a person's worth should be judged, and that's true to Dr. MLK Jr.'s philosophy. So I'm definitely with Phyllis on this one and I say, "Amen to that, sister!"

I'm wondering, after reading this, when the first inter-racial kiss happened in comics. Does anyone know? The first inter-racial kiss on television, between Nichelle Nichols and William Shatner, was on Star Trek in 1968. This issue of Young Romance was three years later. Were there any earlier inter-racial kisses, romances, or relationships, especially between an African American and a Caucasian, anywhere in comics before this?