Return to Romance: The Strange Love Stories of Ogden Whitney
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By turns amusing and disturbing, this collection of 1960s romance comic strips provides a provocative window into male-female power dynamics as conceived by one of mid-century America's foremost comic book artists.
Ogden Whitney was one of the unsung masters of American comics. He is perhaps best remembered for co-creating the satirical superhero Herbie Popnecker, also known as the Fat Fury, but his romance comics of the late 1950s and 1960s may be even more unique. In Whitney’s hands, the standard formula of meet-cute, minor complications, and final blissful kiss becomes something very different: an unsettling vision of midcentury American romance as a devastating power struggle, a form of intimate psychological warfare dressed up in pearls and flannel suits. From suburban lawns and offices to rocket labs and factories, his men and women scheme and clash, dominate and escape. It is darkly hilarious, truly terrifying—and yes, occasionally even a bit romantic.
REVIEWS
“Whitney’s take on the [romance] genre is not just strange for the sake of strangeness. Rather, it serves as a means of locating the depth of pain women suffer at the mercy of men who find seemingly countless ways to abuse them. . . . For Whitney, romance is about power, which is what it has been for every writer who has taken romance seriously.”—Paul Morton, The Los Angeles Review of Books
"Ogden Whitney’s comics are about everything I’ve ever been interested in reading about, from make-outs to makeovers. Which is to say, they’re a little bit about men, but more importantly, they’re about women. This collection is both significant and delicious." —Naomi Fry
"With just nine tales, Return to Romance doesn’t wear out its welcome. For me, it did more than fulfill the sort of 'lost classics' reissue project that is New York Review Comics’ mandate. It took a once popular, now defunct genre, and for 112 pages made me believe that one of its practitioners held all the secrets." —Ed Park, The New York Times Book Review
PRODUCT DETAILS
Paperback
Publisher: New York Review Comics; Illustrated edition
ISBN: 978-1681373447
Pages: 112
Ogden Whitney was one of the unsung masters of American comics. He is perhaps best remembered for co-creating the satirical superhero Herbie Popnecker, also known as the Fat Fury, but his romance comics of the late 1950s and 1960s may be even more unique. In Whitney’s hands, the standard formula of meet-cute, minor complications, and final blissful kiss becomes something very different: an unsettling vision of midcentury American romance as a devastating power struggle, a form of intimate psychological warfare dressed up in pearls and flannel suits. From suburban lawns and offices to rocket labs and factories, his men and women scheme and clash, dominate and escape. It is darkly hilarious, truly terrifying—and yes, occasionally even a bit romantic.
REVIEWS
“Whitney’s take on the [romance] genre is not just strange for the sake of strangeness. Rather, it serves as a means of locating the depth of pain women suffer at the mercy of men who find seemingly countless ways to abuse them. . . . For Whitney, romance is about power, which is what it has been for every writer who has taken romance seriously.”—Paul Morton, The Los Angeles Review of Books
"Ogden Whitney’s comics are about everything I’ve ever been interested in reading about, from make-outs to makeovers. Which is to say, they’re a little bit about men, but more importantly, they’re about women. This collection is both significant and delicious." —Naomi Fry
"With just nine tales, Return to Romance doesn’t wear out its welcome. For me, it did more than fulfill the sort of 'lost classics' reissue project that is New York Review Comics’ mandate. It took a once popular, now defunct genre, and for 112 pages made me believe that one of its practitioners held all the secrets." —Ed Park, The New York Times Book Review
PRODUCT DETAILS
Paperback
Publisher: New York Review Comics; Illustrated edition
ISBN: 978-1681373447
Pages: 112