Artist in a shack trumps business man in a mansion any day.

Life in a Garret!
Just Married
Charlton Comics
Cover Art by Sururi Gumen? and Vince Alascia ?
Story Art by Don Perlin and Charles Nicholas
Number 82
1972

When my husband and I first got married he moved from the apartment he had shared with a revolving door of guys and gals to my apartment just up the street. An apartment he had heroically been helping me pay for since by roommate Andrea had abandoned me without any notice.

Less then an year later we moved to a double in the ghetto. And oh how I miss it!

Our landlord, an engineer who looked like the resulting love child from a union between Sam Elliott and Rob Zombie, and his belly dancers/hair dresser wife, lived in the other half with six golden retrievers that sound like a herd of elephants when they ran up their steps. Otherwise you never heard anything at all which says something about the volume of six giant dogs running up the stairs.

We paid $450 a month when it was almost impossible to find rent under $850.  True, we had to share a backyard with six dogs, but we had one of our own so we didn't really care. I have always been a dog person and am convinced to this day that every dog I see a good dog. See that dog? He is so cute. I bet he's a good dog! Yes he is.  Except for my own. In Vincent's case, I know better.

In that neighborhood my convertible had its tires slashed and its top cut in an attempt to still my radio which was a shit radio so I really don't get it. Aaron witnessed an attempted vehicular homicide and our landlord had his brand new truck stolen. But even with all this, it wasn't until shirtless-tattooed-skinhead-guy set fire to shirtless-mullet-guy's car while he was in jail because shirtless-mullet-guy kept peeking in the window at shirtless-tattooed-skinhead-guy's girlfriend and whispering creepy things to her, that we finally decided we needed to move.

We were poor but happy and it has always been my philosophy that if two people can't be happy together while they are poor, they probably can't be happy together when they're not. Because god knows, life isn't easy and Charlton's Just Married title seems to understand that better than anybody! Oh the drama!

Now I have always genuinely loved Just Married's story Love in a Garrett and I suspect you will too!  In it we meet Kim and Roger, a young married couple, who are struggling to improve their lives. But tragedy strikes even as Roger can see the Groovy at the end of the tunnel.

With Kim having fallen ill, her parents blame Roger.

And when Kim is set to go home,instead of Roger picking her up, his guilt has her receiving a letter saying goodbye.

When Kim goes looking for him at their old home, the place has been condemned as the complete deathtrap that it was.

And none of their hippie, deadbeat friends can help either. (Interesting side note: Blogger does not recognize "hippie" as a real word.)

Her father is not very understanding. (Interesting side note: Kim's mother is rather well maintained.)

I'd like the say here that ALL father's feel that no one is good enough for their daughters. When I told my parents I was marrying my husband my father just kept asked me if I was really sure and then told me how he felt we should keep out finances separate. And my dad actually really liked him! My mother just said she was happy it was a boy.

Months go by and still no Roger. Until ...

And for some unidentifiable reason, Roger seems to have gotten more attractive. I just can put my finger one it.

Roger explains to Kim and her parents what he has spent the last six months doing. And Roger says the words that very father-in-law to an artist wants to hear.

 No more fine art for me!

Then Kim and Roger make the mistake we all do. 

Much like in a horror movie, you just felt like yelling at the panel and telling them not to do it didn't you?

Kim and Roger's life seems perfect. Kind of like the Brady Bunch without all those damn kids. 

Then they make yet another one of those mistakes we all do.

I feel like I just watched the slutty girl drags the jock to a secluded area of the woods for some privacy.

But striving for that "perfect life" was taking its toll.

And as expected, the perfect life becomes less enjoyable then the life they were leading before. Excluding the whole pneumonia thing of course.

And then Kim does what I constantly fantasize about. Well, one of the things anyway.

You always hear He Who Dies with the Most Stuff Wins but you're still dead. So remember kids, quality of life is more important then quantity of stuff so pay attention!

It's not the size of the vessel, it's the motion of the ocean.

"His First Mate"
Love Diary
Charlton Comics 
Cover Art by Demetrio Sanchez Gomez
Story Art by Charles Nicholas and Vince Alasci
Number 87
1973

There are four words that are a MUST to keep in mind in any long-term relationship. Those words are accept, ignore, indulge and complain. Of course the complicated part isn't remembering the words so much as figuring out where to apply them. Sorry, that's your job, I can't do everything for you. So, good luck with that.

Here is an example: My husband accepts my never dying love of the Dynamite Hack 2000 release Superfast. I just don't care enough about this to make the effort to show you that I care enough to try to get you back in bed with me. He ignores the fact that I am a rather terrible cook. Terrible might be an exaggeration. I just sort of suck. He indulges me in my need to constantly be reading a book. It's good for the mind! Well perhaps not with the crap I've been reading as of late. And he complains that I seem just a little too interested in Gerard Butler movies. Have you seen RocknRolla? It's a great movie. The fact that Gerard Butler a aesthetically pleasing is completely incidental.

I, on the other hand accept that my husband likes Frank Senatra. That's why the lady is a tramp. Really? That's why? I ignore the fact that he puts my multi-colored dishes in rainbow order after I put them away. OCD much? I indulge him in his bizarre revolving obsessions. Vikings, Pirates, Mythology etc. And I complain that he complains about the Gerard Butler movies.

Well currently I am indulging my husband in a new obsessions. But this isn't part of his typical yearly cycle. This is a new one. It's about sailors. It is not as potentially sexy as it sounds. It has currently manifested itself in his reading of Moby Dick, continually talking about dirty lyrics of something called Barnacle Bill the Sailor, questioning me on my willingness to live on a boat, hell yes! trying to get a library DVD of Jaws and sitting around with a book on sailor's knots and practicing with a rope. Okay, this has a little more potential.

Add all this to the fact that we just got back from spending a week on a beach certainly the event that has spurred Aaron's current interest and that we always sleep with one of those alarm clocks that makes the sound of the ocean, sailors are currently never very far from my mind either. But were they ever? So today I am bring Love Diary's story His First Mate.

From the first we are introduced to Diane Barr. A secretary with a love of sailing but without the bread needed to make her dream of owning a boat happen and Jim Condon, a sailor without enough bread to keep his dream of owning a boat afloat. Wow, that was a bad.

This is very much like a plot of some seventies sitcom. In another episode due to some contrived complication they are forced to stay all night in a department store with a severely effeminate store clerk and we are forced to suffer through much bad double entendre.  

Someone has to be in charge, woman! Wow, I think my heart just sped up.

Just because you have an ugly hat doesn't mean you can be a captain. It didn't sound to me like she had been on a boat since she was a kid. This idea just seems to be getting worse and worse.

From now on, I think I'd better do the cooking. Well played sir. Well played.

Assuming one or the other isn't a rapist, this sleeping on the boat thing could really save them some phat cash.

Wow, a man soaked to the skin AND without a sense of humor. I'm surprised she doesn't jump him right there.

Remember girls, only say yes to a marriage proposal when the guy stops being hostile just in time.

I sometimes think Chartlon was on crack.

You never know what you're got ... until you realized what you got could have got fat.

"The Ones That Got Away"

For Lovers Only
Charlton Comics
Story Art Penciled by Charles NicholasNumber 96

1971

Most of us, at one time or another, have found ourselves in a relationship that has disintegrates to a point where one becomes little more than a complaints department. I know I sure have. Amy, you're too good for me. Amy, you've ruined me for other women. It can be terribly exhausting.

But what I would imagine to be far worse is a relationship where a former love interest is used as a measuring device for your inadequacies. I should probably take this moment to apologize to all the girlfriends that were used as a sadly lacking replacement for me. But apologizes are not my strong suit. 

Well with my love of the ridiculous and shallow I thought it a grand idea to bring you this (extremely) short  tale of one such relationship. In The Ones That Got Away we meet the shallow and unhappy Donna and Billy. Donna is a woman with a hunger for money and Billy is a man who uses babe-a-liciousness as a measurement of value.

Am I the only one who finds it strange to have a framed (and signed) 8"x 10" of someone you once dated just hanging round the house?

Since I am no longer a redhead I will not take sides in the who is hotter argument. But I will point out that while Cuddles is wearing less clothing, Donna has far pointier boobs.

As fate would have it, directly following their airing of grievances, grievances that I have no doubt they have aired again and again, Donna and Billy are presented with an opportunity to ogle in real life the remembered loves that they have been ogling in their minds.

When the big day arrives Billy and Donna chose to dress appropriately for both seduction and the heat of the July 4th weekend. Billy in a black turtle-neck, short-sleeve shirt and Donna in a pair of skin-tight green pants and a belly shirt.

When Billy finally runs into his old flame she appears to be dimwitted and to have put on more than a few pounds. Oh my!

While, no doubt, Donna is thrilled at the outcome, her joy is short lived. As she soon discovers her old love has also put on the pounds and is the proud owner of a shirt that is both sleeveless and laces up. Really?!

Needless to say ...

Sometimes it just takes the unattractiveness of other to help you remember just how great you really are.

Sadly in another 25 years they have a have a similar argument about how old the other is starting to look that involves the people they dated in the ninth grade.

I do feel the need to point out that while Cuddles and Timothy are certainly not as healthy as they were, they still likely have a happier relationship. And Timothy likely still makes the phat cash.

Want to feel like less of a man?

"Reckless" 
Secret Romance
Charlton Comics
Cover Art by Frank Bolle
Story Art by Charles Nicholas and Vince Alascia
Number 43
1979

I know what you gentlemen are thinking ... Hey! I'm as much of a man as the next guy!

Sorry boys but compared to Clete Andrews you just started your period.

Time and time again Charlton Comics has shown us that they know women. In Reckless, this time around they prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they know real men. And how!

Adrenaline junkie and child of privilege Clete Andrews is very likely the sexiest man to grace the pages of Secret Romance. He is certainly the hottest man to ever vacation at a luxury hotel in the Caribbean. And no doubt Anne Moultrie thanks God he was there because without him, she would have unquestionably been just another victim of...

SHARK ATTACK! 

With Clete on the scene, Anne is able to make her escape, thus leaving Clete Andrews to do what real men to best.

Especially since Clete no doubt tea-bagged him.

At dinner that night, looking oh-so-fine in a dinner jacket, Clete tells Anne about his life of manly excitement. 

 On occasion I also donate blood and testosterone to the Red Cross.

But Anne finds his dangerous lifestyle worrisome.

Sorry, I just can't see this black hair god going for little Miss Ash-blonde over there. But it could just be jealous talking.

But Anne's attraction of Clete has her over stepping the bounds of someone he has know for less then a week.

And Clete gets pissed.

Looks like someone isn't getting felt up on the hotel couch tonight.

Despite Clete's anger, or maybe because of it, Anne can't stay away. And, on a whim, finds Clete in the hotel's casino on one hell of a roll. And ready to take one more roll of the dices.

And because there is just something about a man who has no qualms about bumming money off his parents...

But that night Anne's dreams tell her the truth.

Like the ferocious shark that brought them together,Clete Andrews was not a man easily caged.

A fact proved the next morning when he skips town.

All too soon Ann's vacation comes to an end and she returns home, thinking to never see Clete Andrews again. Until ...

Clete Andrews. Isn't that the name of ... the guy who was kicked out of the hotel hot tub with you?

Of course, Anne is unable to turn away.

And, if only to cinch his total hotness ...

Wow! I think I might even have a crush on him. The Adventure People looking jumpsuit and helmet are no doubt helping. 

With this news that Clete is in the hospital, Anne feels she must see him.

 

And, not deterred in any way by the fact that Clete all but dumped her at the hotel when he check out leaving only a note behind, Anne buys a plane ticket and heads out immediately to see him.

 

And discovers that sometimes if you want to cage something wild you have to break a few bones.

  

How's that uterus working out for you boys?