Girls' Romances #45

This 1957 entry in DC's Girls' Romances series captures heartache with quiet elegance — a dark-haired young woman in the foreground clutches herself tensely, her expression one of longing and pain as she watches a couple embracing on a moonlit porch in the background. Tony Abruzzo's pencils and Bernard Sachs's inks give the scene a moody, cinematic quality, the glowing full moon casting the whole tableau in bittersweet light. Promised "love stories that could happen to you," this issue — teasing the story "So Near — and Yet So Far!" — delivers the kind of emotionally charged romance that made National Romance Group titles a staple of mid-century readers.