[5] This changed in 1947 with the return from war of one of comics' earliest and best-known creative partnerships, that of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, who had already created Captain America, the Boy Commandos and the Newsboy Legion.

[5] Working for Hillman Periodicals, the two created a "teen-humor comic book called My Date", cover-dated March 1947, which contained within its pages "ground-breaking" stories concerned with "comparatively faithful depictions of teenage life, centering especially on romantic experiences and aspirations".

[5] Arguably itself the first "romance comic", positive reaction to My Date allowed Simon to negotiate a deal with Crestwood publishers Teddy Epstein and Paul Blyer (or "Bleier") "before the four-issue run of My Date had run more than half its course",[5] and to receive an unheard of 50% share of profits in return for producing their follow-up for that company.

Told from a first person perspective, underlining its claim to be recounting "true" stories, the title was an instant success, "bec[oming] Jack and Joe's biggest hit in years" and selling "millions of copies",[6] and a staggering 92% of its print run.

[5] "For the first five years", Simon and Kirby produced "at least one story (usually a lengthy lead feature) per issue", but the increased output of the Crestwood/Prize romance titles meant that in many cases they merely oversaw production.

[5] They remained "involved with every story", despite not writing or drawing them all, and "maintained a high standard of quality" by employing artists including "Jerry Robinson, Mort Meskin, Bruno Premiani, Bill Draut, Ann Brewster, John Prentice, and Leonard Starr" to work on the title(s).

1, issue #4 for example, featured a cover picture of "then MGM starlet Joy Lansing", which was then reused as the cover for Eclipse Comics' 1988 "Real Love" collection, which reprinted in black and white a number of the Simon & Kirby romance stories, including early work by Leonard Starr, who went on to create the newspaper strip feature Mary Perkins, On Stage.

[12] Some Simon & Kirby romance-comics stories, predominantly from Young Romance were reprinted in 1988 by Eclipse Books under the title Real Love (edited, and with an introduction by Richard Howell).