Visual Innuendo: The Lighthouse Cover

The cover of Lovers' Lane 11, published by Lev Gleason, could possibly exemplify an archetypal lighthouse cover because of its reduction to the basic elements, even though it departs somewhat from the usual scenario where such an object is utilized in romance comics. In the early 1950s when, despite the lack of the Comics Code, direct mention of sex in mass media for the general public was taboo, such matters could be inferred through the use of symbols. In the case of this cover, the symbolism helps explain the apparently incongruous use of a lighthouse in what appears to be a picture frame, and a very unusually shaped one at that, given the subject matter. It could be a window, again of a very unusual shape. So what we see here is a young woman preparing for her wedding, lost in meditation on the privileges she will enjoy that night with her legally wedded husband. Hence the beaming smile - not long to wait! The solid, upright lighthouse represents the subject of her reverie, encircled by a pristine, gilt-edged orifice. The older woman assisting with the bride-to-be's preparation is perhaps her grandmother, and as evidenced by the direction of her gaze and the look on her face, she remembers fondly her own earliest encounter with manhood, as she views the same scene but through the veil, representative of the mists of time. More typically, a lighthouse cover involves a couple embracing, usually kissing, in a coastal location or on board a vessel, with the building somewhere in the background, emphasizing the passionate arousal engendered by the encounter. Within the confines of romance comics, then, the lighthouse structure, and its association with the characters and plot, was used as an indirect reference to what older readers would have been able to interpret as 'off-screen' or otherwise hidden events. It was a more innocent time. I wonder what the average person from the early 1950s would think of the degeneracy of modern society's explicit norms.

Romance Comic Art

Some of the most aesthetically pleasing art to be found in comics turns up on the covers or in the pages of romance comics. Although romance comics deal with a wide range of trials and tribulations that result from the quest to find true love, there are covers that simply depict that treasured moment when a couple are lost in that perfect embrace. Frozen in time, there are no clues as to the painful anguish or yearning that might have gone before, nor the misery that might have followed, but in real life we know those things are there. Yet this is that instant many aspire for even today, that fleeting fraction of a life when things are as they are supposed to be. The four covers here are of this type.







Heart Throbs #1 has the added interest of being a 'lighthouse cover' incorporating this piece of suggestive imagery. Confessions of Love #11 is one of the many gorgeous covers drawn by L. B. Cole for romance comics. Diary Confessions #14 also features a common romance comic theme - the masquerade ball or party. On this cover the masks are coming off and the couple show each other who they really are, begging the question as to whether their relationship will flourish. But right now all that matters to them is the moment.