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cherry Linda Lark: Romantic Dilemmas

Linda Lark, issue no. 1
Eight issues, quarterly
Dates: October 1961-August 1963
Publisher: Dell

"And when I was a student at Spencer, I thought nursing was romantic!"
--From Cherry Ames,
Department Store Nurse
, p. 105


Linda Lark soothes the sick and injured at General Hospital and elsewhere, and pursues her heart's desire, young Dr. Joe Blasko, despite inevitable complications.

Linda Lark apparently had a bit of an identity crisis going on.

Though the first issue of this romance comic is titled Linda Lark, Student Nurse, the next few are called Linda Lark, Registered Nurse, and the last ones are titled Nurse Linda Lark. Not only that, but the nurses depicted on the covers bear little resemblance to the character as drawn in the stories (or to one another from cover to cover), and--in grand soap opera tradition--the covers seem to promise more dramatic stories than are actually delivered ("torn between love and her work, which will she choose!").

Linda Lark does face some serious romantic and career dilemmas as she travels the corridors of General Hospital, but her zany and man-crazy friend, the self-deprecating Nurse Charley, can always be counted on to provide comic relief, as befits a typical sidekick.

Linda occasionally ventures beyond the hospital setting, including a perilous journey as a nurse on a cargo freighter and a mission of mercy to "Strovaka." She also has a stint as a TV personality and participates in a experiment for the space program. Through it all, however, her heart belongs to Dr. Joe Blasko.

Beginning in the second issue, the comics included an interesting series of stories about "Tramp Doctor," a recovering alcoholic M.D. who is making amends for his dissolute lifestyle--and the deaths of his wife and infant son--by living and working with natives in the tropics; it seems rather mature subject matter.

Regular text features in the series include information about various nursing careers and biographical sketches of such real-life nurses as Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton.



Cover illustration from Linda Lark, issue no. 1, October-December 1961, copyright © 1961, Dell Publishing.
Information on issue numbers and dates comes from The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, 27th edition, 1997.

Copyright © 1996-2003. All rights reserved.


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