TITLE: Patsy and Hedy Career Girls vol. 1, Issue #107
YEAR: August 1966
COMPANY: Marvel Comics/Male Publishing Corp.
Edited by Stan Lee
Art by Stan G.
Script by Denny O’Neil
In an earlier post, I wrote about “Patsy and Hedy”, an early teen romance comic book series from Male Publishing which would become Marvel Comics and Patsy Walker would later become a superhero known as Hellcat.
Originally a title that was worked on by Stan Lee and Al Hartley (which started back in 1952), in issue #95, Patsy Walker and Hedy Wolfe (who are friends and rivals similar to Archie Comics’ Betty and Veronica) graduated from high school and by issue #96, they were now career girls. Sporting a modern hairstyle and are now adults, by issue #100, Patsy and Hedy enter a new chapter in their lives and move away from home. In issue #104, their friend Nan gets engaged and it would the beginning of the career of these two ladies who now work as reporters for the New York Star and are on a cross-country quest. The series would come to an end in 1967 with their 110th issue.
In this issue of “Patsy and Hedy Career Girls”, Patsy and Hedy are off to San Francisco to have an interview with America’s best-selling writer, Julian Fairlee. While in San Francisco, of all the luck, the run into singer Cord Ryan.
As Cord’s band broke up because some of the guys went into the Army, Patsy and Hedy tell Cord about who they are going to interview and invite him to join them on the interview.
At Fairlee’s office, they find out that there is a movie adaptation for his book but Patsy and Hedy will learn that on the set, the production is wrack with mysterious problems.
As the original series featured several stories and readers had a chance to design outfits to send to the editors for feature and get credited for it in the comic book, this time around there is just one full storyline and there are not as many fan designs presented in the story, but there are one page features that do showcase outfits designed by fans.
There is also a different vibe with “Patsy and Hedy Career Girls” as earlier issues which often featured Patsy and Hedy in odds together, this time they are mature and are working together, not arguing or at each other’s necks.
But for a full issue, it’s actually a mystery style of storyline of who is wreaking havoc on the set of Fairlee’s movie.
But there were the years of non-superhero comic books for Marvel that inspired or entertained fans in the late ’50s and ’60s.