Here’s the original 1960s First Kiss art…
Here’s a scan from the original 1960’s art. Betty has the hots for super shy Ron. And now, she’s ready to make her move!
Below is the art the way it looked when it was published in FIRST KISS #30 in 1963. Charlton’s printing was rarely good and here it’s just plain crummy. To see how crummy keep scrolling down for a side-by-side comparison with the LAST KISS art.
When I bought the rights to FIRST KISS years ago, in the deal Charlton included black & white photostats (or negatives) of all the art. That’s what I’ve been scanning from and while the stats are sometimes dirty or of poor quality they’re usually far superior to the art as it appeared in the published comic books.
In the LAST KISS art (below left) you can still see some of artist Luis Dominguez’s fine line work. There’s plenty of detail for the eyes, the eyebrows and shoulder. But in the published FIRST KISS art (below left) that’s all disappeared or bulked up into muddy blacks. Such a shame!
People really seem to enjoy seeing the original art for my Last Kiss gags. I was a bit surprised by one response, though. Recently a reader asked about seeing the art as it was actually printed in the Charlton Comics decades ago.
Hmm. Why not? Here’s a scan I did tonight from the original 1959 issue of First Kiss #9.
As you can see, I removed the woman (Ginny’s mom) in the background to focus in on Ginny in the foreground. I do occasionally crop things out. Deleting a person is somewhat rarer!
Below is the original romance art from the 1960s.
Of course, the original dialog is totally innocent—in context. But, if you want to read it as a continuation of my Last Kiss dialog…wow! Those are two horny kids!
Apparently they’ve decided that some “like sex” isn’t as much fun as the real thing.
