InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "you agitating my dots?"

strannik01 (strannik01) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-10-07 12:56:00

Entry tags:

era: golden age, genre: romance, publisher: harvey comics, status: public domain

When romance comics were downright creepy.

As anybody who read romance comics scans in both versions of our fine community can attest, romance comics often featured romances between young girls and men that were (at least) a couple of years older then them. But none of them were quite as creepy as "The Man of My Dreams," a story that appeared in Love Problems and Advice Illustrated #2. Now, I know that age consent worked a bit differently back then (it didn't count if you were married), but still... The names of the artist and writer who created this are lost in the mist of time, which is probably just as well.

Dial-up link link (even if less and less people need it every day)

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ashtoreth
2009-10-08 06:02 am UTC (link)

Yes, the teenager should totally be blamed for being inappropriate. But that hardly removes responsibility from the adult.

And Candy never seems to touch base with reality-based expectations. She has only adjusted her Dream Man to include Bob's looks. This is the kind of marriage that goes down the tubes after five years and a painful adult realization that Bob isn't perfect. And Candy doesn't want someone who isn't perfect. Pretending that this sort of thing isn't likely ignores history, Doc.

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dr_hermes
2009-10-08 06:17 am UTC (link)

Candy is expecting a literal perfect knight to sweep her away. Bob isn't like that in any way and hardly notices her. Yet she's drawn to him because he seems mature and refined.. not at all what she was looking for. I'd say that's not just tweaking her expectations to accept his looks, it's pretty much dropping her expectations as meeting someone different.

"After I got over my first disappointment in him, I discovered that I liked him better the way he was" is not at all the same as "Except for the glasses, he was just what I had been dreaming of." The story sure seems to be saying that Candy drops her unrealistic idealized man quest when she meets a real person she likes. She does want someone that's not perfect, in the sense that she doesn't compare Bob to her imaginary knight. Otherwise, you might expect an image of Bob now in the armor in Candy's daydreams, or Candy trying to reshape Bob into what she wanted.

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	ashtoreth 2009-10-08 06:22 am UTC (link)
	Relationships are about discovery and compromise. Candy adores, unquestioning. That's the behavior of a child and her father, not lovers. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

dr_hermes
2009-10-08 06:42 am UTC (link)

Bob adores her the same way, unquestioning. It's doesn't mean he sees her as his mother. They're just giddy in that early stage of love that usually settles down after a while, and that's when the arrangements and compromises are started to be worked out. And in a few years, maybe it won't work out. There's no way to tell with love, you just have to take your chances.

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	ashtoreth 2009-10-08 06:47 am UTC (link)
	And some people marry who should not have, but pretend everything is all right because admitting that you've made a horrible mistake just makes everyone unhappy. Divorce is so disruptive. Bonus guilt for staying together for the baby you shouldn't have had when you were too young! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-10-08 07:47 am UTC (link)
	Yep. There's no guarantees. (Reply to this) (Parent)

sistermagpie
2009-10-08 02:33 pm UTC (link)

Bob adores her the same way, unquestioning. It's doesn't mean he sees her as his mother.

Of course not, but then, he doesn't adore her the same way. The arcs about how they come to each other are very different. Candy's adoration for Bob starts before she meets him, based on her ideas of how dashing he will be. Even after she adjusts her expectations (adjustments which actually are mostly about looks--it's the only thing she mentions), he's still glamorous owing to his age compared to hers.

His adoration of her is inspired by her adoration of him. When Betty, the girl he criticizes as "a dope" when she was 15 leaves him on the dance floor to meet a movie star, he dismisses her as adolescent, then finds Candy in a corner, moping over his not noticing her. She'd even rather stay by his side than leave a burning building.

It's just very ironic that the very behavior Candy's praised for (as opposed to Betty) is just as adolescent. Betty's rushing to see a movie star, Candy's pining over a guy who's so mature and refined...compared to the guys her own age. The comic treats her being 15 as an obstacle when if they'd met when they were both 15 he wouldn't have had the main thing that attracted her.

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dr_hermes
2009-10-09 02:06 am UTC (link)

I see your point, although the fact they're coming at the relationship from different directions doesn't matter as much as the fact that they got there does.

You caught the unspoken irony in that Betty seems to get shortchanged because she knew Paul when they were both kids. Now that Paul's 21, he has an appeal for Candy that he wouldn't have had if he was 15 himself.

But that's the way romances work. Timing matters. If you met the same person a year earlier or later than you did, neither one of you might have been interested. (And vice versa.) There's a huge element of pure chance in life.

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