True Life Secrets

    (Charlton, 1951-1956)
™ and ©1953 Charlton Comics Group

“Ewww, love comics!” was the standard response of most male comic readers in the ’40s and ’50s, but it’s a good bet that a fair number of adolescent boys sneaked into their sister’s room to get a look at titles like Charlton’s True Life Secrets.

Closely resembling the film noir melodramas of the same period, the stories in True Life Secrets featured hard-edged tales of lies, betrayal, and often violence, spiced up with some lurid (by 1950s standards) scenes of buxom gals in lacy underthings. These dark stories were often wrapped in covers featuring the standard “caught-in-the-act, man-with-another-woman, oh-how-could-you?” scene later effectively parodied by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein and others.
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