Romantic Story #89

A tropical vacation setting frames a quietly heartbreaking cover scene: a young man in a yellow shirt reaches toward a dark-haired woman in a floral dress, a rose tucked in her hair, while a bespectacled redhead looks on from the background — the palm trees and resort atmosphere making the loneliness in that caption all the more pointed. "I realize now that this vacation trip was a mistake… the aura of love and romance is everywhere — but not for me!" sets a bittersweet tone that Charlton's romance line did so well in 1967. Cover art by Pat Masulli and Dick Giordano, with interior work by Joe Gill, Hal Grauer, and Vince Colletta, makes this a satisfying snapshot of mid-sixties romance comics at their most emotionally earnest.