Posted by the Web-Ed on 05/21/2010
Another Western-Romance hybrid title, thought to be Cowboy Love (issue unknown) provides us with another nice spanking scene. (The more of these we find, the better we like the genre). We also like the way the cowboy ignores her protests: "No - put me down! Owoo! Stop at -- Owooo!" The "at" was probably a typo, either on the part of the writer or the letterer. Presumably they meant her to say "Stop it --", although we kind of like "Stop at 300, please sir!" as a continuation.
We don't have any notes to indicate where this came from (and we do try to give credit when we can), which probably means we found it on Yahoo. The year is not known, but 1949, 50, 51, or 55 are most likely.
Note: Four years later detailed information came to light - see below.
The cover of Cowboy Love #1 (July 1949). Published by Fawcett. Posted by the Web-Ed on 09/26/2014 (click to double-size).
09/26/2014 Update: Once again the fabulous comics collection of JVJ comes to our rescue (thanks also to Fanz123 for taking the trouble to send us the spanking page). It turns out our original estimate was very close: the year was 1949, and the comic was Cowboy Love #1 (July issue). The cover promises "Rip-roaring romance of the plains!" but didn't mention the spanking that certainly brightened up the book's debut.
The splash page from "My Darling Clementine". (Click to double-size).
The spanking story is "My Darling Clementine" and it's a long one at 15 pages (the issue had 48 interior pages total). Looking at Jim's index card for this issue (low tech, but it serves), he identifies the artist as "Moldoff" i.e. the late Sheldon "Shelly" Moldoff (1920-2012). Moldoff had a flexible style and worked for just about every comics company including Fawcett after World War II, so it's certainly possible that he drew this story. Moldoff is best known now for the work he did on Batman from 1953 to 1967 (uncredited because he was hired by Bob Kane who had a contract with DC to produce Batman for them, thus his work appeared under Kane's signature). Kane is to this day credited as Batman's creator, although we believe the essentials of the strip were in fact devised by writer Bill Finger, but that's another story.
Moldoff's Batman (inks by Charles Paris). This is from Batman #156 (June 1963) with some of the odd sci-fi aspects typical of the 50's Batman still in evidence. Note that Batman still has his original insignia which was replaced later that year by the one in which the bat is surrounded by a yellow oval.
The spanking page from Cowboy Love #1 (click to increase in size).
Our story opens with spankee-to-be Clementine Blair outbidding Clint Lanner at a horse auction. Disregarding his warning not to try breaking the wild stallion herself, she soon finds herself in real trouble as the stallion gallops away out of control. Clint comes to the rescue, but as he sets Clementine safely on the ground she complains, "How dare you treat me like that!" and then slaps him - bad idea!
Over Clint's knee she goes (good positioning), and we can now see that the spanking is witnessed! Yep, a number of cowhands, or maybe just the local layabouts, got to enjoy some free entertainment: "Thet's it, boy! Haw! Haw! Haw!" making Clementine's humiliation at being spanked that much worse!
We're not going to present the next page, but there is one point of interest when Clementine tells Clint, "I'll never forget this!" and he replies, "Me neither, ma'am. It was a pleasure." A pleasure! We'll just bet it was, but this line of dialogue is a little surprising since by the general standards of the time, the erotic aspect of spanking was not supposed to be suggested (this was five years before the Comics Code, but the criticism of comics had already begun - see our lengthy discussion of Frontier Romances #1, which was published four months later that year, or our article The Effect of the Comics Code on Comic-Book Spanking). We will produce just that panel a little later.
Page 11 of the story.
The spanking occurs early in the story (on page 3), which then proceeds somewhat tediously with Clementine pretending to fall for Clint in order to have the chance to get back at him later. At left we pick up the story eight pages after the spanking where Clementine has just told Clint her affection was all part of an act. Determined to get one last kiss, Clint sees (or should have seen) from her reaction that the whole thing was just a juvenile act on her part and that she really does love him. He should have given her a second spanking on the spot (in front of everyone again!), but instead he gets into a fist fight with one of those unshaven toughs who always seem to be hanging around in these western romance stories.
The last panel - a happy ending!. (Click to increase in size)
After a cattle drive in which Clint is the only one still working for her father, Clementine finally confesses her love to Clint (which shouldn't have been necessary after she responded to his kiss four pages earlier), and they ride off into the sunset. Spanking deserves some of the credit for this, since that's what got Clementine to pay attention to Clint in the first place. Future OTK sessions during their marriage would no doubt ensure a long and happy relationship.
The newer scan of the spanking panel (click to increase in size).
Let's enjoy the all-important spanking panel once more.
The "peels" (sic) of laughter echo around Clementine after she gets her fanny warmed in front of the townsfolk (click to increase in size).
Here's the 2nd after-spanking panel in which Clint admits it was "a pleasure" to spank her! Unfortunately, there's absolutely no way to know who wrote that line as Fawcett employed a number of writers.
And here's the spanking panel plus the panel immediately following. Nice bottom-rubbing afterward lets us (and the onlookers) know that the spanking really stung!
