Strumpet! Harlot! Jezebel! – Intimate Confessions #18

There’s something bewildering about the publication history of these old Intimate Confessions books. There were originally four of them published in 1958 (I think), but they inexplicably were numbered 9, 10, 12 and 18. This comic is actually a full reprint from 1964 (I think), when I.W. Publications reprinted all four of the books. I think. Honestly, I’m a bit worn out from trying to piece together the background of these things through Google searches and the like.

There are a ton of stories in this book, so, since I don’t have enough hours in the day or days in the week to cover them all, why don’t we just focus on the cover tale? It’s the cream of the crop, luckily enough.

Here’s the teaser for “Woman of Shame!”:

No, Hugh Hefner is in no way involved in this plot.

How did this lovely young lass come to this lowly state? Let’s find out!

We open as we do so often in romance comics, with a couple already in love. They’re both in college and are making plans for their mutual future (he gives her his frat pin as a token of his love — I’m already smelling problems) when the young lady, Nancy, receives a telegram with some devastating news:

With her father gone (days before his time, judging by the elderly looks of Mama), Nancy takes up the mantle of providing for her invalid mother. She sends a letter to Tom, her beau, telling him that the engagement is off and she’s not coming back to college. That tearful task completed, she sets out in search of work. Rejection after rejection smacks her in the face, but just when she’s about to give up hope she runs into a willing employer. She’s a bit suspicious of his eagerness to hire a young woman with few qualifications, and her suspicions turn to horror when she realizes what the prospective job (taking pictures at a night club) entails:

I think the moustache and going by the name “Ace” would have been clues that this guy isn’t 100% motivated by altruism.

Nancy’s desperate for work, so she can’t look a gift horse, even a seedy one, in the mouth. Her fears are allayed the next night though, when she shows up to be outfitted and receives reassurance from a somewhat scary looking house seamstress:

Thus buoyed, Nancy takes to her work like a natural. She snaps her pictures and develops a rapport with the club’s patrons. Things are going well, and then old Tom comes for a visit. He proposes to her, but things explode when he surprises her at her job (and she hadn’t told him the nature of her work):

I’m sympathetic to Nancy’s plight, and Tom seems like a frat-boy dick, but methinks the lady dost protest too much. I don’t think Annie Leibovitz and Gloria Steinem are swelling up with vicarious pride here.

Nancy cries herself to sleep that night, but the tears don’t last long. When she takes her mother to a doctor’s appointment a short time later, the doc (Eric), a familiar face to both ladies, makes quite an impression on this younger of the pair:

I think you see where this is going. The two enter into a whirlwind romance, but it all threatens to collapse into a heap when Nancy finds herself the subject of a feature story in the local newspaper:

It must be a slow news day for the Daily Shopper when it reaches into its “Local Woman Has Breasts” story pile.

Poor Nancy is crestfallen, sure that Eric will ditch her just like Tom did. When he comes over later she can’t face him, but Eric isn’t there to break up with her:

The thought of the gray-haired mother prancing around while scantily clad kind of takes the edge out of the happy ending, no?

This is a fun little story, and hopefully Eric whisks Nancy away from that job of hers. I have a bad feeling that it won’t be long before “Ace” asks her to orally service some valued customers in a back room. And if anyone has more information about the background of these Intimate Confessions books or suggestions for who the artist might be, feel free to chime in.