Girl Comics is the name of two comic-book series published by Marvel Comics and its forerunners, Timely Comics and Atlas Comics. The first, debuting in 1949, ran 35 issues, changing its title to Girl Confessions with issue #13 (March 1952). The second was a three-issue limited series published in 2010.
Publication history
First series (1949-1954)
The initial Marvel Comics publication entitled Girl Comics was an ongoing romance comics/girls'-adventure series edited by Stan Lee that ran 12 issues (Oct. 1949 - Jan. 1952), first by Marvel's 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and shortly afterward by the company's 1950s iteration, Atlas Comics. It was renamed Girl Confessions with issue #13 (March 1952) and ran a total 35 issues, through cover-date August 1954.
Artist contributors to this series included John Buscema and Al Hartley in issue #1, Bob Brown and Bill Everett in #3, Russ Heath in #5, Ann Brewster, Mike Esposito, and Dick Rockwell in #8, and Bernard Krigstein in #12. Contributors to multiple issues of Girl Confessions included Hartley, Jay Scott Pike, Morris Weiss, and Golden Age Batman artist Jerry Robinson.
Second series (2010)
The second Girl Comics was a three-issue limited series, based on the idea of featuring female talent in the comics industry during 2010. Sister titles during this period, under the Women of Marvel brand, included the limited series and one-shots Heralds, Black Widow, Namora, Lady Deadpool, and Her-oes. It ran three issues cover-dated May to September 2010.
Jeanine Schaefer, one of the editors, said of the initiative's timing, "Because 2010 is the 30th anniversary of the first appearance of [the superhero character] She-Hulk, we got together to brainstorm some ideas for a celebration of women at Marvel Comics, much like we did for the 70th anniversary...." She said the publisher felt the potentially controversial word "girl" in the title could be reclaimed: "It was one of the first titles we thought of (the actual first one, I think), because it pulled double-duty: Not only was it the name of an old Marvel romance title, it has a word in it that we could take back."
The 2010 series contains contributions from Devin K. Grayson, Louise Simonson, Amanda Conner, Jill Thompson, Trina Robbins, and Molly Crabapple, among others. The 52-page first issue included stories of the male characters Nightcrawler, the Punisher, and Spider-Man in addition to stories of the superheroines She-Hulk, Venus, and Jean Grey. In addition, a two-page text article spotlighted Marvel Comics' Silver Age secretary and later independent comics publisher Flo Steinberg.
Illustrator / cartoonist Stephanie Buscema, who penciled and inked the eight-page story featuring Venus, is a granddaughter of the major comics artist John Buscema, whose work appeared in the first issue of the 1949 series.
References
External links
- Girl Comics (1949) at the Comic Book DB
- Girl Confessions at the Comic Book DB
- Girl Comics (2010) at the Comic Book DB
- Zawisza, Doug. Review: Girl Comics #1, Comic Book Resources, March 3, 2010
- McDonald, Amanda, and Jeff Marsick, "Best Shots Comic Reviews", Girl Comics #1 (two reviews), Newsarama, March 8, 2010
