Heart Throbs #2

A dark-haired woman with red roses in her hair gazes up at a man in a striped shirt in an intense, close-up embrace — while a distressed redhead in the background looks on in dismay, palm trees hinting at a tropical setting. The cover art by penciler Chuck Cuidera and inker Bill Ward perfectly sets the emotional stakes for four stories packed into this October 1949 issue: "Siren of the Tropics," "Mardi Gras Madness," "Perilous Infatuation," and "Heartbreak Headline." Romance comics didn't get much more compelling than this — all for a dime.