Chicago Spanking Review

April

---> Comics Gallery 2

Posted by the Web-Ed on 06/11/2010.

We don't know anything about this one, which we found on Yahoo. It bore the name "April" but we can't identify any strip by that name. The dialogue reads "That didn't sound like you at all!" None of the other writing is legible. The spanker is using the wrong hand to spank, and is holding the spankee's ankles with the other for some reason. That's all we know - if we ever find out more, we'll add it here.

05/18/2018 Update: We might never have found any clue to the identity of a strip this obscure, but CSR Chief Strip Researcher Sweetspot deemed it "a puzzle worth solving" and scanned over 4000 images to identify it.

Here is a better scan of the spanking panel. The spankee is pretty well centered on the spanker's lap and doesn't really seem all that sorry to be spanked - hmmmm. Below we have the complete strip that shows Mom is getting spanked by Dad for a joke at his expense told by their son but attributed by Dad to her. This explains Dad's comment, "That didn't sound like you at all".

Fan Fare April 1, 1952. Scan by Sweetspot.

From Sweetspot's notes to us:

"Chanced by a strip called Fan Fare by Walt Ditzen. I have concluded to my satisfaction that this is the source of the "April" cartoon located in gallery two...Fan Fare, unlike Tank McNamara that premiered the year after Fan Fare ended [1973], did not have a central character but did have a cast that represented a variety of sports enthusiasts and participants. Ditzen covered a variety of activities in his strip including bowling, golf, baseball, football, hunting and fishing and basketball. Ditzen played basketball for pay in his native IA. He was 6'4" and 230. Just before his death he had been awarded the Special Service Award by the American Bowling Congress.

Fan Fare April 1, 1952 (different newspaper).

Sweetspot continues:

"Walt Ditzen was born in Davenport, IA, worked in Chicago for the Chicago Sun-Times as a comics editor. He also was a staff illustrator for the National Safety Council. He told his Sun-Times boss in 1945 that he wanted to try his hand at a family strip. His boss said they wanted a sports strip and Fan Fare was born. Ditzen would move to Scottsdale, AZ and continued to produce his strip until his death by heart attack in 1973 at age 59. He left behind strips through the first week of April of that year."

Fan Fare June 18, 1960. Scans by Sweetspot. Edits and posting by the Web-Ed on 05/18/2018.

Most of Sweetspot's comments may also be found on the Weekly Updates topic for 4/01/2017.

Here is one more example of the strip from eight years later in 1960. This appears to be a sort of Father's Day gag with the wife covering up the dates that fall on Sunday.

Sweetspot also discovered a near-miss M/M spanking which will not be posted in CSR. Regarding possible other spankings he observes:

"With over 20 more years of dailies and Sunday strips left in the run of this cartoon I wonder if more spankings are to be found? The connection between the theme on this particular day and the idea that this is a sports-strip is pretty tenuous but I think Ditzen's first love evidently would have been to do a family strip, so I guess he occasionally did straight out family gags."