Tales from the Dumpster: Angel Love

Tales from the Dumpster

Angel Love

Barbara Slate’s Angel Love was an interesting shot at engaging teen girls in comics.

And when I say interesting, I politely mean crappy.

I picked up issues 3-6 based on issue three’s cover which has the spikey haired protagonist exclaiming “What? You’re pregnant?!” The cover art was definitely Archie-esque, and I hoped to find some adult issues tackled in a light humorous mag.

Well, it was light, but both the writing and art were unfortunately subpar. It turns out that letting a woman (she has prominent billing on each cover, something extremely unusual in comics, especially in the mid 80’s) draw and write about touchy issues is not quite enough for success...she has to be talented as well. Angel did last 10 issues (counting an annual and a special), but I don’t think she has garnered much historical renown even if she was the first DC leading lady (which she might not have been) to have a coke sniffing boyfriend in her first issue (an incident I learned about from the letters pages). Besides, Harry Osborne had been popping pills since 1971 in the pages of Spider-man.

I’ll give Ms. Slate the benefit of the doubt that she was sincere in her attempts to create something unique that spoke to a different audience, but the actual product is so bad that it just reeks of executive-idea-gimick. It’s hard to imagine the art and dialogue could pass muster in any other comic title had not the execs asked someone to come up with some crap to draw in the “11-18 year old girl” (again info gleaned from the letters pages) demographic, a demographic that did, and does not, buy a lot of comics.

The abortion story in issue 3 wavers awkwardly between the edgy and the infantile, starting off with Angel drawing (she’s a struggling artist too...oh! art imitating life?!) an angel that starts talking to her about wanting “a nose job.” When Angel erases her ample schnozz to replace it was a “cute” sharp one, the even-more-crudely-drawn-than-the-rest-of-the-comic angel says “ouch!” Hah! A regular laff-riot this book.

The actual abortion bit is pretty standard after school special stuff. Angel counsels her friend to review her option and then promises to support her whatever she chooses...while this in itself isn’t “bad,” it’s all there is. Imagine the previous sentence poorly illustrated over two pages of panels, and there you have it.

Then you have a few pages with more ground breaking humor in the form of banter between her ditzy, blonde, wanna-be-actress, roommate and her wise, black, hip-talkin’ (he calls females “girl” and doesn’t pronounce the g’s at the end of his sentences) male friend before we get to the conclusion...where we find that her friend has changed her mind and won’t be having the abortion after all.

Then issue four is about her being flighty in romance, followed by her mother being on her death bed in issue five, and her search for her sister to get some bone marrow to save her mom in issue 6. But with some cute talking cockroaches to lighten it up a bit.

All relevant issues, I suppose, but that’s hard to see, because it’s all done poorly.

But there were some folks who liked it...take Artie Salazar from issue four’s letters:

“Dear Angel,
I’m a lonely young man who spends a lot of time reading comic books. You are the greatest breathe of fresh air from the miserable environment that sometimes comes from these stories. Every young, heterosexual man dreams of meeting a beautiful, funny person like yourself.”

Artie then goes on for four more paragraphs to share where he goes to school (UC San Diego) his future plans (moving to New York to direct on Broadway “I...expect to have the same problems with roaches...Ha-ha!”), and his current triumphs (“I’m directing a futuristic adaptation of the opera Madam Butterfly.”) before concluding with:

“Perhaps one of your fans will see this letter and contact me. I love you.”

Angel responded:
“Dear Artie, You sound like such an interesting guy...”

By which I’m pretty sure she politely meant “crappy.”