What happens when you take a vintage romance story and replace all the dialog with modern jokes? That's What 2006's Marvel Romance Redux was all about. The guys take a look at 1969's "Jilted" by Stan Lee(?), Don Heck and John Romita, and then Redux's "Love Me, Love my Clone!". Same art, different story, and each available in the Romance Comics Theater experience!
Listen to Episode 13 below (the usual filthy filthy language warnings apply), or subscribe to The Lonely Hearts Romance Comics Podcast on iTunes!
Relevant images and further credits at: Lonely Hearts Ep.13 Supplemental
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This was a fun experiment! The second version was trying a bit too hard to be snarky at times, but I give them credit for running with the clone gag all the way. Oh and the girl totally stole Gwen Stacy’s coat.
The Last Kiss website takes old romance comics, and rewrites the dialog with tongue firmly in cheek. I wonder which came first, this Marvel Redux or that?
I might try to interest my eight-year-old daughter Dani into filling in the blank balloons and captions. I imagine she could come up with a very entertaining story!
Chris
Man that Romita art is so very sweet.
Thanks so much for noting the offensive (even for the time) “transgender” joke, it saves me having to rant about it. You guys seem to have a pretty good understanding of where the line is, I don’t think you have to worry about tackling LGBTQIAPK and offending. You all seem to have a fairly well tuned internal barometer.
Getting back to the comic I’ll say that I laughed out loud at the first page or so of the redux as the initial jokes of the new setting and crowbarring things like “acid rain” hit. But it then made the mistake of oh so many bad Saturday Night Live sketches and rather than build on that foundation or go somewhere unexpected, it then proceeded to keep making the exact same two jokes for the remainder of the comic and by the end I was rolling my eyes so hard I was glimpsing my own brain.
Overall it’s not a bad idea, but what little humor there was only worked because I got to hear/read the original version first. In a vacuum without that full context the jokes die even faster.
lol Fern you make a great cad!! I think that Marvel maybe missed out on an opportunity to re-do the dialogue in these comics to be more modern and still keep a romance story instead of just trying (and failing) for the wacky random humour. If they were to do the same thing today you could have a lot of fun trying to construct a more progressive romance story constrained by the artwork. I do *love* the idea of getting kids to try and write their own stories to these older comics though, that would be funny to see. Thanks again for a wonderful podcast gents!
Great episode. Love the theater! Think I may give the experiment a go at some point and send my story on.
You mention Supergirl’s romances in the Silver Age and mention the wackiness of aliens, mermen, and horses. But I’ll remind you that in that period the primary love interest was Dick Malverne, a plain old kid in an orphanage just like her. For everybody thinking that maybe they would have a girlfriend like Supergirl in real life, it was hopeful that she rejected the ‘special’ people for just another guy.
While I don’t know diddly about Beast Wars, I wouldn’t mind some discussion about romances in related material such as manga. I would love to hear all your thoughts about the dreaded Rick Hunter/Lisa Hayes/Lin Minmei romance in Robotech, the most soap opera like mecha-driven anime ever!