Monday, May 23, 2022
Obscurity of the Day: The Secret Heart
You've gotta give the Chicago Tribune points for thinking outside the box in the early 1970s. They finally dropped some of their old deadwood (I'm looking at you, Smitty, Smilin' Jack and Little Joe) and tried out new features that were definitely new and different (Friday Foster and Ambler immediately pop to mind).
Another original strip was The Secret Heart, which aimed to bring romance comics to the newspaper. Y'know, I've been trying to think of an earlier example of romance comics in newspapers and I can't come up with anything. Sure, you've got the old magazine cover series of the 20s and 30s, but those were playing for laughs, and then you've got the panels by Nell Brinkley and her followers, but those really don't attempt to tell ongoing soap opera-style romance stories. Do we count strips like The Girls in Apartment 3-G and On Stage as romance comics? Or Brenda Starr, or Mary Worth? Seems like those strips aim a little wide of the mark -- they are soap operas, granted, but it seems like they want to take in more ground than just romance.
Questions which I guess are pretty academic since The Secret Heart crashed and burned quickly, leaving hardly a trace behind. But 50 internet points to the first commenter who names a 'serious' romance comic strip that resembled this one in the 1980s! (no I don't mean Bears in Love).
Anyway, I'm wandering. The Secret Heart, which also went by the name of My Story* and Story-A-Week** for awhile, offered exactly that -- a romance story that was told in the period of one week -- six dailies leading up to a Sunday in which the gal would get the guy, or the guy would get the gal, or heartbreak when neither happened. The final panel of the Sunday would introduce the next story, starting next Monday.
The feature looked like a (better than average) romance comic book. The art was provided by "Jorge Franch", apparently a nome de plume of Jordi Franch Cubells. This Spanish artist is said to have gotten the job on the strip through his friend and mentor Jorge Longaron, who was providing the art on Friday Foster for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate.
The stories were provided by veteran comic strip scripter Jim Lawrence, and they're problematic. In an apparent bid to be hard-hitting and relevant Lawrence sometimes tells tales involving sexual assault, workplace harrassment and other gritty stuff, subjects that may belong on the front page but maybe not in a romance comic presumably meant to appeal to teenage girls.
The strip debuted on June 18 1973***, but good luck finding papers that ran the strip -- they are exceedingly scarce. Neither the Tribune or New York News felt it was worthy of in-house support, so that wasn't a good precedent. And since the strip required client papers to run both the daily and Sunday, that was a tough sell -- even if features editors really like the strip it can be tough to make room in both the Sunday and daily for a new feature.
The Secret Heart made it only a little more than three months before the syndicate threw in the towel. The feature ended on September 30 1973.
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* Oddly, this title was used on the half-page original art of the Sundays --- but I've never seen a printed example of the Sunday that ran as anything other than a third page. And on the third-page version, the in-strip title was "The Secret Heart".
** This title was used by the Detroit Free Press -- see sample above.
*** Start and end dates from Detroit Free Press.
Labels: Obscurities
: 5/23/2022 6:16 PM As to another "romance" strip, I'd venture that Stan Drake's "The Heart of Juliet Jones" comes closest to the mark. I've read the CCP (and some other) reprints, and most story arcs either focused on or involved Eve or Julie romantically linked to some guy who ultimately proves unworthy or married or too focused on his career.
You can make an argument that Li'l Abner was a romance strip. How else to explain its focus on the Abner and Daisy Mae romance for nearly its entire run, even after she finally caught and married the big lug. Some of their most touching romantic moments occurred after they were married.
Many other strips featured romantic elements. Tarzan had Jane, Flash had Dale, Popeye had Olive, Dick Tracy had Tess Trueheart, Skeezix had Nina, and even Prince Valiant had Aleta.
: 5/23/2022 8:59 PM : 5/24/2022 10:27 AM --Allan
