Girls' Love Stories #139
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeGirls' Love Stories #139 (1968) is a representative installment of DC's longest-running romance title — the very first romance comic DC ever published, which debuted in 1949 and ran for 180 issues through 1973. As a late-Silver Age entry, the issue belongs to the stretch of the series (issues #48–161) that DC published at the aggressive rate of eight times per year, evidence of how commercially important the romance genre remained to the publisher even as superheroes dominated the cultural conversation. The series as a whole holds a notable place in art history: panels from its pages were among the source material Roy Lichtenstein appropriated for his Pop Art paintings, giving these workaday romance stories an unexpected second life in fine-art discourse. Issue #139 sits in the middle of that culturally significant run, a routine anthology that was nonetheless part of a publishing machine that shaped how mainstream comics addressed female readership for a quarter-century.
In "Kiss Me-- If You Dare!", Ellen finds herself caught off guard when her ex-boyfriend Vic shows up at her engagement party, reigniting old feelings and threatening to unravel the carefully planned future she’s built with Steve. The tension builds as one reckless moment teeters on the edge of disaster, testing loyalties and the strength of promises made.
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The series was launched in 1949 under DC's National Periodical Publications imprint, overseen initially by editor Jack Miller, with women editors — most notably Zena Brody, who joined the title in 1952 — playing significant roles in shaping its voice over the decades. By 1968, the title was being edited by Jack Miller and drew on a rotating stable of writers including Bob Kanigher and George Kashdan, with artists such as John Rosenberger, Vince Colletta, and Ric Estrada handling much of the late-Silver Age output on the title and its sister romance books. The year 1968 itself was a period of upheaval at DC — Carmine Infantino had taken over as art director with a mandate to modernize the line — but the romance titles continued their established formula largely unchanged.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Girls' Love Stories was DC Comics' first romance title, launching in August–September 1949 and running for 180 issues through November–December 1973.
- Issue #139 falls within the series' eight-times-per-year publishing window (issues #48–161), reflecting the sustained commercial demand for DC romance comics through the late Silver Age.
- By 1968, the series was edited by Jack Miller, whose name appears in credits for adjacent issues including #140 (cover-dated January 1969).
- Artists active on the title in this period included John Rosenberger (penciler), Vince Colletta (inker), and Ric Estrada (cover artist), all confirmed on neighboring issues #137 and #140.
- Writers contributing to the series during this era included Bob Kanigher and George Kashdan, who were mainstays of DC's romance line throughout the Silver Age.
- Panels from Girls' Love Stories issues were used as source material by Pop Art painter Roy Lichtenstein, giving the series an unexpected connection to fine-art history.
- The series followed a multi-story anthology format per issue, with each self-contained romance story typically narrated in the first person by a female protagonist.
- DC's romance line as a whole comprised as many as seven concurrent titles by around 1970, with Girls' Love Stories as its flagship and longest-running entry.
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Reprints
↩ Reprints Secret Hearts #89 (1963)
Reprinted in Magic Moment Romances #70 (1968)
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