Sweetspot takes especial delight in finding long-lost spanking scenes fondly remembered by his fellow spankos, and this is one of his more significant discoveries along those lines: the fifth spanking from Abbie an' Slats! In this case, it was the recollection of CSR Resident Artist Dan Rivera that inspired the search:
"I hope and pray that before I die, I get to see once again the greatest comic strip spanking ever: The scene where Slats puts a spoiled heiress over his knee and spanks the daylights out of her because she offers to kiss him, and he says: 'I'd wanna kiss you if you was Becky, but you ain't Becky.' With that, she slaps him -- hard. In two seconds, she is over his lap, getting the spanking of her life. But that strip has never been posted to this or any other spanko board, to my knowledge. I hope I get to see it again, someday."
That was back in 2010 when we had just posted the first three spankings from Abbie, so it's taken seven long years, Dan, but here it is at last!
July 27, 1938. Scans by Sweetspot, color-balanced by Web-Ed.
July 28, 1938.
July 29, 1938.
July 30, 1938.
August 1, 1938. Scan by Sweetspot.
August 2, 1938. Scan by Sweetspot (click to increase in size).
August 3, 1938. Scan by Sweetspot. Script probably by Eliot Caplin and art by Raeburn Van Buren. © King Features Syndicate. Posted by the Web-Ed on 03/31/2017 (click to increase in size).
The spanking panel, as modified by CSR Resident Artist Dan Rivera to avoid the "cut-off" effect of the right panel boundary.
The spanking occured on August 2, 1938, making it the first one chronologically unless there's one yet undiscovered from the strip's first year, 1937. It's as good a scene as Dan remembered, with the proud and haughty socialite Tony Turkle being taken down a peg by the American commoner, Slats Scrapple. (If the name "Tony Turkle" was intended as a play on the name of a famous female subject of the British Empire at the time, we don't recognize the reference). The theme of the powerful, arrogant female humbled by a good spanking is one that really resonates with us, and it was a common one during these years. It reminds us that the essence of spanking is the humiliation of the spankee.
"Me!! - Tony Turkle!!! ...Spanked by a mere nobody like him" she says, as the pain stars go a-flying from the affected region while she sheds tears of humiliation - some time after the spanking! We think we'd describe her expression in the spanking panel as one of dissatisfied helplessness - she doesn't like having no option but to lie there across Slats's knee and take what's coming to her.
As this is the last spanking from the strip that will be posted barring any new discoveries, let's make a short index here of them all. To avoid confusion, we aren't going to re-order our numbers to correspond with the now-known chronology of these scenes.
- Larry spanks the rambunctious Margie. (08/19/1939)
- Slats spanks bad girl Jackie. (06/30/1944)
- John Smith spanks his wife, movie star Lola Burner! (03/14/1945)
- Mr. Forbush spanks his grown daughter Helena (05/18/1957)
- Slats spanks Tony Turkle (this page). (08/02/1938)
- Miss Pulsby spanks Bratly Snootworthy (03/09/1952), the only F/M scene (not presented in this gallery, but it is in the Comics Spanking Data Base).
- "Bathless" Groggins spanks Baby Betty. (08/19/1949) Not presented in this gallery, but it is in the CSDB.
Seven spankings is not the record for a comic strip, but it's a good, healthy number, and most of these are excellent scenes. What strikes us is the great variety in the types of spanking represented: #1 is quite romantic given Margie's positive reaction to getting spanked; #2 is a bad girl getting her just desserts; #3 is similar to #1 in that a strong man takes control of his woman; #4 is an example of paternal discipline (even though the daughter is fully grown); #5 is as we said above another instance of the proud and haughty socialite receiving the comeuppance she deserves; #6 & #7 are two cases of brat's punishment (the spankee in #6 is even named "Bratly"!).
We have searched for but could not find any evidence that either Elliot Caplin or Raeburn Van Buren were spankos. For now we must consider this an open question, although we're inclined to the view that Caplin at least believed that spanking had its place in art, and probably in life.
