Romantic Secrets #22

Charlton's Romantic Secrets #22 from 1959 serves up a full anthology of heartfelt drama, with five stories — "The Kiss," "Love on Cloud Nine," "The Fighter," "I Learned Better," and "Fast Girl" — promising plenty of emotional range for a dime. The cover, penciled by Charles Nicholas and Vince Colletta and inked by Colletta and Sal Trapani, arranges its imagery in overlapping circles: a dark-haired woman and a tuxedoed man share a close, tender moment in one, a tearful blonde in a veil gazes wistfully in another, and a sleek orange late-'50s automobile cruises through a third, all framed by clusters of pink roses. It's a perfectly composed snapshot of the hopes, heartaches, and thrills that made romance comics such an irresistible read in 1959.