Zany romance comics from a twentieth-century eccentric

Wickedly funny stories of passion, heartbreak, and terror by an artist who inspired Daniel Clowes and Jaime Hernandez [RETURN TO ROMANCE THE STRANGE LOVE STORIES OF OGDEN WHITNEY]( Edited by Dan Nadel & Frank Santoro | Introduction by Liana Finck Ogden Whitney's romance comics are some of the most beguiling artifacts of twentieth-century cartooning. Written in the late '50s and '60s, at the tail end of a boom in the romance genre, they presented a bizarre vision of love entirely antithetical to the sickly sweet narratives being peddled by the wider industry. Instead of warmth and ardor, Whitney's characters are driven forward by fear and utter befuddlement: They scheme, clash, and—true to life—manage to completely misunderstand each other at every turn. There are nine stories in Return to Romance, along with an introduction by Liana Finck, who explains why the comics are worthwhile for a modern audience to read, and an afterword by Dan Nadel, who provides biographical context to Whitney's idiosyncratic style. It's a bizarre and wonderful collection, both a hilarious time capsule of the outdated values of the past and an enduring portrait of the wild, frantic, torturous nature of love. Dan Nadel & Frank Santoro will be in conversation with The New Yorker's Naomi Fry at The Strand on Monday, October 7 at 7:30pm, to celebrate the release of [Return to Romance]( and Santoro's new book [Pittsburgh](, another NYR Comics title. Buy tickets [here](. [LEARN MORE]( For three days only, [Return to Romance](, along with these three other NYR Comics titles, will be available at 30% off. [W]([HAT AM I DOING HERE?]( by Abner Dean [A]([LMOST COMPLETELY BAXTER]( by Glen Baxter [MACDOODLE ST.]( by Mark Alan Stamaty You are receiving this message because you signed up for email newsletters from NYRB. You can [choose the types of mailings you wish to receive](: [Update preferences]( New York Review Books 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014 Not a subscriber? Sign up for our newsletter [here](. [Unsubscribe](