My Own Romance #71

The cover of this September 1959 Marvel romance issue crackles with melodrama — a woman in a red dress clutches her face in anguish while a stern young man in a blue suit confronts her on a city street, their heated exchange spelled out in dialogue balloons, as a second man holding a bouquet of roses waits hopefully in the background near a sleek automobile. Jack Kirby's pencils and Chris Rule's inks give the scene a charged, cinematic tension that perfectly suits the lead story, "Don't Ask Me to Marry You!!" The whole cover bristles with the kind of emotional conflict that made Marvel's romance titles a guilty pleasure in 1959 — torn hearts, impossible choices, and a cast of characters who all want something they can't quite have.