The Real Housewife Drama of Pictorial Romances #13, Up for Auction

Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Matt Baker, St. John Publications

1952’s Pictorial Romances #13 with Matt Baker cover and art features the kind of messy reality of love and life that would soon be scrubbed from the newsstands.

Article Summary

Matt Baker’s bold cover and interior art bring the drama of post-war romance to Pictorial Romances #13.
This 1952 St. John classic explores imperfect relationships, challenging the era’s sanitized love stories.
Pictorial Romances #13 features stories like Truant Wife and Temptations of a Hat-Check Girl, rich in real-life emotion.
St. John romance comics are rare in high grade, making Matt Baker’s issues especially prized by collectors.

As one of the best romance publishers of the period, St. John romance comic books like Pictorial Romances #13 are among the best examples of the pre-Code comic book romance genre’s ability to explore the complex and often messy reality of love and life in post-war America. In an era when radio and television shows like My Favorite Husband and Father Knows Best were attempting depicting sanitized and humorous takes on relationships, comics were reflecting the anxieties of a generation coping with evolving social roles. Matt Baker’s cover for Pictorial Romances #13 teases several stories, such as Temptations of a Hat-Check Girl and its night club story of “invitations” and Unwanted Husband, a tale of “a married woman who has a roving eye.” But the featured story on both the cover and the interior pages is the drama of a Truant Wife feeling trapped by marriage and motherhood. Featuring a cover and interior art by the legendary Matt Baker on the kind of messy romance stories that would soon by scrubbed from the newsstands by the Comics Code, there’s a gorgeous high grade Pictorial Romances #13 (St. John, 1952) CGC VF 8.0 Cream to off-white pages copy up for auction in the 2025 September 18 Golden Age Comics Century Showcase Auction II at Heritage Auctions.

Pictorial Romances #13 (St. John, 1952) featuring Matt Baker artwork.

The confession magazine as we know it today (or at least, as we knew it for nearly a century) was popularized by Bernarr Macfadden’s True Story beginning in 1919. Fawcett Publications jumped into the field in 1922 with True Confessions, which through various ownership and format changes, lasted until around 2017. In 1949, Fawcett filed suit against St. John for infringing on its trademark for True Confessions with the comic book titles Pictorial Confessions and Hollywood Confessions. While there’s no sign that this suit went to trial, it would appear that St. John settled, with Hollywood Confessions lasting for two issues and Pictorial Confessions lasting for three. Both titles were then renamed and resumed.

With a title change to Pictorial Romances, the series eventually became a success for St. John during this era, with a large number of Matt Baker covers and stories throughout the highly sought-after run. St. John comic books are notoriously difficult to get in high grade, and the best copies almost never change hands at open auction. This CGC 8.0 Cream to off-white pages Pictorial Romances #13 (St. John, 1952) is up for auction in the 2025 September 18 Golden Age Comics Century Showcase Auction II at Heritage Auctions.