Career Girl Romances

Originally posted February 2009:

Here's an Aparo job so rare that it's not in my collection...yet! Career Girl Romances #40 has an Aparo cover and an 8-page story illustrated by Jim.

Our cover girl here strikes me as very reminiscent of the girls that John Romita used to draw when he was one of DC's primary romance artists...and, for that matter, when he was drawing groovy chicks like Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson on Spider-Man! The jazzy backing musicians, though, are a bit more in the Aparo style.

This one's from 1967, during Jim's first year in the comic book business, toiling away at Charlton. At this stage, Aparo's line work is delicate, which was generally expected of artists on romance comics. The inking is, in fact, barely recognizable as Jim's, but he was doing what was expected as he started to make his way in the business.

Note that he's drawn a left-handed guitarist here...I wonder if he was working from some photo reference of a lefty, or whether he just opted for a figure that better suited the cover composition? Whatever the case, I've got to give him credit for drawing a more convincing guitarist than many comics artists of the era that attempted to depict musicians. The microphone position is a little off, and the drum kit is sparse, but over all, it's a good stab at drawing a combo with a sexy girl singer, don't you think?

UPDATE:
Now that I've got a copy of the actual issue, here's Jim's splash page from the interior story:

It looks like Dick Giordano did the cover, based on Jim's interior work. Dick altered the girl's face and adjusted her pose, but the guitarist and drummer adhere to Aparo's work.