Latino/Spanish Artists at Charlton: Demetrio (7) - Secret Romance 31

Charlton romance comics cannot be discussed without mentioning Demetrio. Demetrio Sanchez Gomez produced a fair body of work for Charlton, mostly war stories but at least 25 romance stories, as well as a few examples from other genres. Like other Hispanic artists working in American romance comics, his panels and pages have a kind of European flavor that distinguishes them from material produced by other mainstream comic artists. Charlton's romance line was a little more off-beat than DC or Marvel, not always in a weird way - the Spanish artists were part of something interesting that was going on at Charlton at the time. The following list of Demetrio's Charlton romance stories is compiled from the Grand Comics Database but includes additional stories not there identified but which I have in my collection. There are also several that I have not included here which look like Demetrio's artwork but on which I cannot find a signature. Note that there are very few Demetrio romance comic covers, and that the period during which his romance work was published by Charlton extends over three years, from late 1973 through late 1976. Some of the earliest posts on this blog presented six examples of Demetrio's romance stories, so I will update those in the next few weeks as Out Of This World gets into the Latino/Spanish artists working at Charlton from the late 60s through the mid-1970s.

Date	Title	#	Story	#pages	Cover
11/73	Love Diary	87	A Cause of Love	9	Y
9/74	Teen Confessions	85	Perfect Date!	9
10/74	Just Married	102	A Good Fight Is Fun	9	Y
11/74	Teen Confessions	86	Marry Me Soon, Darling	9
11/74	Love and Romance	19	Sweet Victory	9	Y
1/75	I Love You	110	From The Shadows	6
1/75	Secret Romance	30	Ring Twice	9	Y
2/75	Teen Confessions	87	Fabulous Fifties	15	Y
2/75	Time For Love	40	If You Love Him – Let Him Go	9	Y
3/75	Secret Romance	31	They Talk About Me	6
6/75	For Lovers Only	79	The Big Break	9
6/75	Teen Confessions	89	Running Wild!	9
7/75	I Love You	113	Discovered Love	7
7/75	Love and Romance	23	Don’t Pity Me!	6
7/75	Secret Romance	33	The Love Goddess	8
8/75	For Lovers Only	80	Love Above All	7
8/75	Teen Confessions	90	I Remember You	6
8/75	Time For Love	43	Romeo and Who?	6
9/75	Love and Romance	24	A Perfect Catch	6
12/75	Teen Confessions	92	A Night to Remember	12
1/76	My Only Love	4	I Learned My Lesson	6
2/76	Teen Confessions	93	Fast Cars and Faster Women	10
3/76	Secret Romance	37	Bus Ride Blues	6
6/76	I Love You	118	Choose Your Partner	8
9/76	Teen Confessions	96	Bulldog’s Grip	8

Demetrio's work looks different depending on the quality of the inking, just like everyone else's. The example presented below, "They Talk About Me" from Secret Romance 31 (March 1975) is short (6 pages) but with some sweet artwork. I wonder if Elizabeth Berube did the inking and/or coloring on these better Demetrio pieces - there's certainly some commonalities when these are compared with her own work. "They Talk About Me" below is a standard high school romance scenario, with the ex-boyfriend spreading bad rumors about the girl, and Prince Charming putting him in his place. Simple story but definitely cute. Note that the second panel on the splash page represents partial re-use of the art from Demetrio's cover of Love and Romance 19.

Next on Out Of This World, another Demetrio story of similar quality from the pages of Charlton's Secret Romance. As for what Demetrio is doing these days... check this out:

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/demetrio-sanchez.html

Examples of his non-romance work:

http://ilustradoresehistorietistasespaol.blogspot.com/2009/11/demetrio.html

Latino/Spanish Artists at Charlton: Luis Avila (3) - Love Diary 53

This next example of Luis Avila's work - "Unfaithful Heart" from Charlton's Love Diary 53 (Feb 1968), really does his talent justice. It's another romance story in which the leading lady is trying to figure out who she really loves. Some of the panels in this one are really quite exquisite. For sure Avila has a certain mental image of the kind of woman he likes to draw, as well as the kind of car - an Alfa Romeo Duetto! He does good kissing scenes and embraces. His characters are stylish dressers, must spend a lot of time and money on hair-dos, and live in stylish apartments or houses. They're not short of a few bucks! They are thoughtful people, wrestling with entry into adulthood proper. They're faced with dilemmas that they don't fully understand at first, but work things through until the truth is revealed.

 

Nice!

Latino/Spanish Artists at Charlton: Luis Avila (2) - Just Married 103

In this next example of Luis Avila's work, we're at the end of his stint at Charlton. The cover of Just Married 103 (December 1974) is by Art Capello. The 9-page story by Avila, "Putting It Together", is about a small town third grade teacher about to marry the wrong guy. At first she's not sure why she doesn't experience the thrill she expects from a kiss with her fiancee, so she takes off for the weekend to stay with her girlfriend, who sets her up with a date. the excitement she's been missing manifests during the time she spends with this new guy, especially as they take a tour of the big city. Maybe a complete change of environment is what she needs. The new guy is really struck on our heroine, and wants to meet her folks. Back home its soon clear to Naomi what she really wants, and the two look like they'll live happily ever after. Avila's ladies have a very similar look, as you'll see when some more examples are posted. His technique is to use a lot of poses - not a huge amount of dynamism. As with Demetrio's work, its all very upper middle class despite the protagonist being a third grade teacher. The cars really don't look American. Some unusual poses (for the story) - perhaps he uses fashion model photos to get the outlines. The style with which he draws hair is somewhat common to the Spanish/Catalan/Latino artists generally.

 

 

A well-tried theme for a romance comic story, but told in a way that fits well with Avila's style. I wonder who the writer is?

Latino/Spanish artists at Charlton: Luis Avila (1) - Teen Confessions 50

Out of This World has hitherto focused on various themes - romance comics, nurses in comics, diversity in comics (including anti-racist propaganda and desegregation of the comic book medium), and British girls' comics. Certain artists have also been given attention, notably Demetrio Sanchez Gomez. 'Demetrio', as he signs his work, is one of a number of Spanish/Latino artists who were drawing for Charlton and DC romance comics in the late 60s and well into the 1970s. The Charlton romance comics of this period often contained one story of superior artistic quality (usually but not always the third and last in the book), and many of these were drawn by those Spanish/Latino artists. Besides Demetrio, there was Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, who did a lot of superhero work for DC, but also a number of other, less well-known artists. One such was Luis Avila. A search in the Grand Comics Database suggests that in American comics he only worked for Charlton. The table below includes all the works attributed to him in the Database, in chronological order of publication:

Date	Title	#	Story	#pages	Signed	Cover
08/67	I Love You	69	Where happiness lies	8	Y (V Avila)	N
10/67	I Love You	70	Too many kisses	8		Y
12/67	Love Diary	52	I betrayed you, darling!	8		Y
2/68	Love Diary	53	Unfaithful heart	8		Y
6/68	Love Diary	54	A few lies, many tears	10		Y
7/68	Teen Confessions	50	I’ll be your kind of girl, darling!	10	Y	Y
8/68	Love Diary	55	I too am in love	8		Y
11/68	Just Married	61	I’ll be a modern wife	8		Y
7/69	Romantic Story	101	Flee from heartbreak	8	Y	Y
8/69	Love Diary	61	A soldier’s promise	8		Y
10/69	Career Girl Romances	53	How to succeed in love	10	Y	Y
11/69	Teen-Age Love	67	No good!	10	Y	Y
12/69	Romantic Story	104	A heart of gold	10	Y	Y
1/70	Grand Prix	29	Not for reel	7	Y
1/70	I Love You	83	A Frenchman’s Kiss	10	Y	Y
1/70	Love Diary	64	Nobody kisses a goddess	10	Y	Y
3/70	I Love You	84	Drop out!	10	Y	Y
5/70	Time For Love	16	Love lies deep and cold	10	Y	N
7/70	I Love You	86	Happiness guaranteed	10	Y	Y
4/71	Career Girl Romances	62	No time for kisses	5	Y	Y
4/71	Teen Confessions	67	Moonlight should be shared	9	Y	Y
5/71	I Love You	91	Beyond love	9		Y
10/71	Sweethearts	119	Men are unessential	8	Y	Y
1/72	Love Diary	76	Is this all there is?	9	Y	N
4/72	Just Married	84	Once we were happy	9		Y
7/72	Hot Rods and Racing Cars	115	Desert madness	7		N
5/73	For Lovers Only	71	Second chance	9	Y	Y
6/73	Career Girl Romances	75	My love returned	9	Y	Y
8/73	Time For Love	35	An ancient spell	9		Y
9/73	Teen Confessions	82	Tomorrow is now	9		Y
10/73	Time For Love	36	Betrayed by a kiss	9	Y	N
9/74	For Lovers Only	75	The whispering	9	Y	Y
12/74	Just Married	103	Putting it together	9		N

Upcoming Out of This World posts will be focusing on Avila and some of the other artists providing romance stories to Charlton in the specified time frame. Today's post features "I'll Be Your Kind of Girl, Darling!" from the July 1968 issue of Teen Confessions (#50). The story is about a high school senior who best friend of many years has started skipping school to hang out with the 'in' crowd, especially a motor-bike riding young man who graduated last year but then didn't go to college despite having a scholarship. Our protagonist is a very sophisticated and mature for her age young lady who bides her time, makes all the right moves, and ends up with the desirable guy, gets her friend back in school, gets him back on the college track, and gets a very nice mod look in the process. Avila's art tends to remind the reader of fashion model poses from the period (e.g. Twiggy, Mary Quant) - there's a lot of posing going on in the story as well! It is visually attractive and draws the attention of the eye. The script is reasonable, but a couple of word balloons seem to be inaccurately assigned. It is a notch up from much of Charlton's art, and refreshingly different for American comic book art of the time. Spanish/Latino artists did a lot of romance and other comic book genre art in Europe in the 60s and 70s, including in the UK, and their distinctive styles seem to have a more European rather than North American look. Here's the story from Teen Confessions 50 - see what you think!

 

 

The mod backgrounds in some panels, along with the hairstyles and clothes, make it an interesting cultural artifact, in addition to it being an example of a particular style of art and of the romance comic genre.