The Daily Comic Book Coffee, number 69: Falling In Love #117

Another coffee page from a romance story? What is it with people drinking coffee in romance comics? Maybe that’s why everyone is so emotional and melodramatic; too much caffeine!

Lisa, the boss’ daughter, has invited young, handsome British engineer Derek over to dinner with her family. It’s all part of a plan to try to get Derek interested in Lisa’s shy sister Dottie. Derek and Dottie are soon dating, but Dottie is worried that Lisa is going to try to steal him away. Indeed, Lisa soon realizes that she is attracted to Derek after all. What’s a girl to do?

Art Saaf’s career stretched back to the Golden Age. He did a great deal of work for Fiction House throughout the 1940s, and then for Standard Comics in the late 1940s and early 50s. In the mid-1950s Saaf began working in television; among his jobs was creating storyboards for the Jackie Gleason Show. He did freelance advertising work throughout the 1960s and returned to comic books at the end of the decade. Between 1969 and 1974 he drew a number of romance stories for DC Comics, several issues of Supergirl, and a handful of war and horror tales.

Saaf is paired here with Vince Colletta, one of his regular inkers at DC. Colletta’s inking is fairly heavy, but you can still perceive Saaf’s expert storytelling and use of facial expressions & body language to establish the personalities of the characters. He certainly does an excellent job differentiating between the outgoing Lisa and introverted Dottie here. I like the awkward humor of those bottom two panels as Lisa and her parents none-too-subtly leave Dottie and Derek to have coffee alone together.

Saaf and Colletta both excelled at drawing beautiful women, so pairing them up was perhaps an inspired choice, after all. Romance comics historian

expressed a fondness for their collaborations on her blog Sequential Crush.