Weird Love: #21

This has been on my desk for several weeks now. I had picked it up because it looked interesting. It’s a compilation of romance comics from the 1950’s which share a theme of being set in a carnival or circus setting. The characters and tales are weird, as the title implies, but it is also a cool view into 50’s sexuality, and they are all from a woman’s perspective. Now I don’t think that any women actually wrote these, so I question how accurately these tales reflect the average 1950’s female ideals on romance, but it made for some interesting reading.

As a young teenager, I worked with my dad at German festivals in the northeast. I got to know the carnies, the vendors, and the entertainers. Often, in the evenings, I found myself in the trailers out back, and can vouch for the craziness that one might expect to encounter in this environment. But all the freaky people I met were nice, and there was a sense of camaraderie amongst everyone. And this sentiment is also expressed in one of the tales in this comic.

“One thing about carnie people you should know. On the outside, they’re hard and tough. Under the skin, though, they’re warmhearted people. They stood beside me and gave me help.”

In my earlier years, when I was discovering comics as a genre, I was solely interested in horror. It would have never occurred to me to read anything having to do with romance. But in the introduction, the editor, Mike Howlett, explains the parallels between horror and romance.

My two favorite comic book genres are horror and romance, probably because there are so many raw and honest themes shared by the two. Fear, helplessness, and an outcome of triumph (slain monster/true love) or failure (death/heartbreak) prove that the formula can be very similar. Horror and romance stories are filled with passion, emotion, and, surprisingly, both genres find themselves right at home in the sleazy and scandalous world of the comic book sideshow.

I had never stopped to consider this structural similarity between the genres, but it seems so obvious now. Anyway, I’m glad I branched out and read this. It proves how important it is to read diversely.