From Robin's collection. © Archie Productions Inc. Scanned and posted by the Web-Ed on 05/20/2011.
We begin a short series of spankings in the Archie comics line with Josie and The Pussycats #55 (June 1971). Josie was created by Archie chief artist Dan DeCarlo (see his many spanking cartoons in the Humor Section), who at first tried to sell it as an independent strip to the newspaper syndicates. When that didn't work out, DeCarlo approached Archie publisher Richard Goldwater who o.k.'d it as a comic-book. This turned out to be a fateful turn of events, and rather unfortunate from DeCarlo's point of view as comic companies always took ownership of the characters, whereas creators could get a more equitable deal from the syndicates. Late in his life, he sued to get a share of the profits and creator credit for Josie, but he lost the case and the company fired him.
The comics used in this series are from Robin's collection, which he was good enough to entrust to us. Let's introduce the main characters seen on the cover, from left to right: Alexandra (on her soap box, literally), who wants to take over the Pussycats from Josie but who has no talent; unknown girl in yellow dress; Josie (notice how much she looks like a female version of Archie Andrews); Valerie (Pussycat); and Melody (Pussycat).
Probably if we took a poll asking the question, "Which Pussycat would you most like to see spanked?" Melody would win in a landslide. (For some discussion, see Spankings in Archie Comics in the CSR Forum.) However, it's Josie who takes the swat here, and it comes about in a rather strange way.
