Sunday, December 20, 2009

The Friendly Skies?

During the 1940s Marvel Comics had a massive teen/young adult humor presence, with titles like Tessie the Typist, Millie the Model, Hedy Devine, and Nellie the Nurse, these mentioned here representing four of the most commonly accepted careers for women at the time - secretary, fashion modeling, actress, and nurse respectively. These female gendered occupations turn up throughout the 1950s and early/mid-60s in romance comics. One theme already noted by Jaques Nodell on her blog, Sequential Crush, is that of the woman finding romance and then surrendering her career to become a home-maker. Another female gendered occupation of note is that of air hostess or airline stewardess, which appears from time to time in the romance genre, most notably in DC's early run of Young Romance. This cover here is from 1950, My Own Romance 14 (Marvel), which shows just the scenario mentioned above in the process of taking place, unless it gets derailed by the intentions of the rival for the pilot's affections.

No comments:

Post a Comment