"THE CHALLENGE BEFORE US, GENTLEMEN, is to make the most boring comic book that ever existed. To that end we have scientifically chosen both story and art to be as insipid and dull as humans can concieve them to be. I believe we have some Vince Coletta in there as well. Will the world herald our success? Will we be rewarded with the yawns and the boredom of generations of children yet unborn? Only time will tell. Gentlemen! I give you... PRIVATE SECRETARY!"


Yes, PRIVATE SECRETARY, the comic that thrills us with Kim's desperate choice between soup or salad. Salad, Kim! SALAD!!!


We join PRIVATE SECRETARY already in progress as Kim, our private secretary, finds herself bored being a private secretary. Damn, that was fast. Now she's off to Europe!


Getting ready for Europe is so expensive! Here's a money-saving tip; don't book your return passage now. Wait until you're ready to come home! I'm sure you'll have saved some money and won't wind up stranded on the other side of the ocean. That almost never happens, and certainly not to Kim here. She knows what she's doing!


Go on Kim, rub your European vacation in the noses of everyone around you. Friends, dates, even the cab driver gets a taste of I'M GOING TO EUROPE, ISN'T THAT FASCINATING, I BET YOU WISH YOU COULD GO. Lady, this cab will take you to Pier 84 and after that you're on your own, okay?


KEEP THE CHANGE? A WHOLE THIRTY CENTS? GOSH, THANKS PRINCESS!! (grumble grumble)


Here in First Class, naturally you'll share a stateroom with a total stranger who fills the cabin with exposition. Better open a porthole!


Shuffleboard, halo throwing, and martinis with that handsome Second Officer. This is the life! At least I think that's shuffleboard. She might be swabbing the deck.


Uh oh, Kim's been entered into some kind of Miss Boat contest against her roommate! Does Kim even WANT to be "The Captain's Lady"? Doesn't matter. The Law Of The Sea is very strict.


First test to see who gets to be the Captain's Lady is a swimming match, to see who will survive after the Captain's lousy captaining sinks the boat. Kim wins, her natural private secretary upper-arm strength giving her the edge over Cynthia. Is Cynthia actually capable of going to extreme measures to win this stupid, meaningless contest?


Yes! Yes she is. Take that, Miss Swims-So-Fast!


Oh no, Cynthia couldn't do a thing like this. Surely not. There must be at least a hundred other people on this boat full of strangers that have a key to Kim's stateroom and a motive for ruining Kim's contest dress.


And sneaky assault pays off as Cynthia wins the karaoke competition. Jeez, Kim, you forgot the words to "Blue Moon"?

Oh well, there's still one more competition, the most important competition of all, the part where you talk about how you would like to end world hunger forever. Wait, no, I mean the swimsuit competition.


And OMG Cynthia comes out in an amazing bikini! A bikini SO AMAZING that this comic book dares not show it! Which, combined with the bug-eyed stares of all the men, makes the whole sequence a lot more risque than it would have been had they just shown Cynthia's damn swimsuit in the first place! Which may have been their plan all along! Well played, PRIVATE SECRETARY, well played.


Of course Cynthia knew of the unwritten law of the sea that says no woman shall wear a bikini during the swimsuit portion of the Captain's Lady contest. The same contest Kim was entered into without her knowledge or consent! It's hard to turn around on a ship without coming up against one of those pesky unwritten laws.


Kim gets over her swimsuit humiliation by wandering aimlessly around the ship, asking meaningless questions to children.


Suddenly Kim's swimming championship becomes vital in a life-or-death struggle! No, don't just jump in the pool. Dive in gracefully! Somebody could be watching!


After rescuing the little girl right in front of the Captain, Kim's class and courage is repaid by the ultimate honor any woman aboard ship could ever dream of, being named Captain's Lady. Whee, now I get to sit at the Captain's Table and eat Captain's Wafers and listen to exciting tales of seasick passengers, customs regulations, labor troubles with the Panamanian crew, and that damn #6 bilge pump. So romantic!


But all ocean voyages must end and soon Kim is off on a new adventure tooling around England in a rented car, visiting castles and buying lots of clothes. What about Handsome Second Officer Bruce? What about the actual crime that was committed aboard ship? Never mind! We're moving on!


England was great, but it's on to Paris where handsome young Englishmen will show her around for a few minutes.


What's that? Kim was unescorted for two or three seconds? Here's a handsome Frenchman to take Kim in tow and show her the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and Uncle Claude in his tacky striped shirt. And remember to spend some money while you're in Paris, Kim. It would be criminal to not buy some perfume! You've got plenty of money, don't worry.


Soon enough Paris bores Kim and she and her rented car and her mountains of purchases are speeding through Spain, getting into accidents with handsome young men.


Handsome young man is, as all young men are in Spain, a champion bullfighter! Shall we achieve a moment of great satisfaction by watching him murder animals in the arena? We shall!


And afterwards Antonio also achieves his moment of great satisfaction. It's good to see that Kim is getting her money's worth out of that "all-kissing" package vacation deal she signed up for! What a perfect trip this has been. Nothing could possibly mar the wonderful memories of this enchanting voyage!


Whoops, ran out of money. Gee, didn't see that one coming since page 3.


And in an amazing stroke of luck, the daddy of the little girl she saved aboard ship totally needs a private secretary. Remember gang, keep an eye on little kids in the pool in case they need saving! It pays off later!


Soon enough Kim is in Rome, working on what's undoubtedly a cheap sword n' sandal epic or some kind of garish Technicolor-blood drenched giallo, being romanced by whatever tie-wearing male can insert himself into her field of vision.


So! Euro-vacation over, she's back in New York with no job. She's got a boyfriend, but HE doesn't have a job. Just think, she could have stayed in Europe, being kissed by bullfighters. Which is a paying gig, last I checked.


Heartbreak as Jack tries to leverage Kim's friendship with Kathy's dad to get him an audition for a play. It's not like he couldn't call Fred Morse himself! "Hey, remember me? I was in that film you shot in Rome!" How hard would that have been, Jack? But no, it's all about pushing women around, isn't it Jack. A valuable life lesson in "Men To Avoid", courtesy PRIVATE SECRETARY.


Tough finding a job, isn't it Kim? It's almost as if your three former ad-exec bosses warned you about this, or something.


Luckily old Fred Morse is right there to throw another job in Kim's lap. A job that was hers for the taking all along if she'd only asked for it in the first place, instead of letting her foolish pride dictate her actions.


Uh oh girl, look who's back! It's lover boy "if you can't help me I'll find someone who can" Jack, who has come back into Kim's life coincidentally at the exact moment that Kim can, in fact, help him.


A stunning realization hits Kim. She's been played like a thirty-pound Northern Pike on high-test monofilament line. On the other hand, hey, Kim got steady employment out of the bum. That's more than a lot of women can say about their scumbag boyfriends!


And in a burst of GIRL POWER, Kim shuts down both her devious Romeo AND her career in show business! Take THAT, work and personal life - Kim is gonna be a private secretary, even if it kills her!


Again with the interviews, with the placement agencies, with the staring at the telephone waiting for it to ring until you could just scream - until finally Kim is, once again, a PRIVATE SECRETARY, as God intended. And we're right back where we started. In two weeks Kim will get bored with her new job and before you know it she's back on some cruise ship, batting her eyes at the second officer and getting assaulted in staterooms.

For whom was this comic book intended? Future career gals stuck in study hall, desperate for any entertainment? Comic book readers too timid for the high-paced thrills of 'Millie The Model' or 'Richie Rich'? Or was it, as we surmised at the beginning, a top-secret attempt by a evil conspiracy to deliberately create the most boring comic book ever made? Whatever the purpose, PRIVATE SECRETARY has truly distinguished itself, and our only wish is that it had remained private a little longer. Like, say, forever.

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