From Hollywood Detective #1 (thought to have been intended to be published as Nights of Horror #17). Taken from Craig Yoe's Secret Identity and posted by the Web-Ed on 04/26/2013 (click to double-size).
As we have discussed at some length, the New York City authorities had seized all unsold copies of Nights of Horror and obtained an injunction against its further distribution. The problem with doing that (from the censors' standpoint) was that the injunction did not prevent the publication of similar material under a different name by the very same people! Accordingly, it shouldn't surprise us too much that a publication called Hollywood Detective #1 bears a suspicious resemblance to the known 16 issues of Nights of Horror, leading to the obvious conclusion it was intended to be issue #17. Craig Yoe points out that Duff Grimes, the hero in Nights of Horror #16, was also the hero in Hollywood Detective, which should remove any remaining doubt.
As far as anyone knows, Nights of Horror was distributed only through a few bookstores in New York City. Eugene Maletta, the printer, recalled that the print run of each was perhaps only one thousand. Of course, some hundreds of copies may have been sold before the police seized the rest. Others were sold under the titles Hollywood Detective, Rod Rule (which we examine next time), Red Chemise, and Black Chemise in order to fool the authorities, which they apparently did. Still, it's rather remarkable that any copies survived for over fifty years before Yoe discovered them and recognized Shuster's work.
The martinette is the implement of choice for this spanking, and we'll call it that because the spankee is being bent over a rickety-looking bar to present her buttocks to the lash. As we have seen in some of Shuster's previous drawings, the spankee looks almost out of place as if she had been drawn before anything else - note that her toes don't seem to be touching the floor, particularly on the left side. Her position isn't bad, except for having her arms tied painfully behind her - we have to wonder if Shuster had ever seen the bondage work of Gene Bilbrew (see e.g. Sorority Girls Spanking 2). Once again, Shuster drew her panties as if they were modern-day "boyshorts" which we don't care for at all. Bilbrew never drew boyshorts, although he did use a similar cross-hatch shading for panties on occasion, so if Shuster used his work as a model (and it's certainly not clear that he did) we don't know why he drew boyshorts instead of regular panties or even a bare bottom - it's hard to imagine either would have made the NYC "morals squad" any more angry than they already were.
Click to double-size.
