Romantic Secrets #39

Charlton's Romantic Secrets #39 from 1962 delivers all the heartbreak and charged emotion the romance genre does so well — the cover by Joe Sinnott and Vince Colletta shows a tearful young woman in a bold striped dress turning away from a brooding man in a dark suit, a vase of orange roses between them as she delivers the crushing words "No Frank! It's over… finished!" The tagline below promises a story built around suspicion tearing love and marriage apart, setting a genuinely dramatic mood before you've even opened the cover. With Joe Gill writing and Vince Colletta inking the interiors, this is a polished example of early-'60s romance comics firing on all cylinders.