Six years ago with reference to the Humorama Spanking Cartoons (2011 was the first year CSR dedicated to these classic cartoons), Butch asked us if we had ever seen any "spankers" by Don Flowers. At the time we hadn't, and even though we researched Flowers as best we could, nothing came up. But not long ago Dave Wolfe turned up two spankings by Flowers, and very recently CSR Chief of Strip Research Sweetspot found three more from Flowers' early days. We're going to present all five as a series now beginning with the earliest: from 1936, it's Diana Dane.
We'll say more about the strip next time. For now, let's get right into the action as Diana's Dad is worried about her being out late at a party and tells her brother he's going to give her a spanking, then produces a switch. Looks promising so far!
Diana Dane, 11/11/1936. Note her brother's old-fashioned nightshirt (click to increase in size).
Diana Dane, 11/12/1936. There is an interesting continuity error as Flowers changed the brother's nightshirt into a bathrobe - did he draw this strip without referring to the one from the day before? (Click to increase in size).
Diana Dane, 11/13/1936. Two points of interest: the title, "Such Indignity," indicates that Flowers recognized the humiliation of being spanked, and Diana's indignant exclamation that "This is the first time I ever got spanked for getting in early!" suggests that she had been spanked before for getting in late.
Scans by Sweetspot. Originally syndicated by the Associated Press; now believed to be in the public domain. Posted by the Web-Ed on 05/19/2017 (click to increase in size).
The plot here is pretty straightforward, as Sweetspot commented to us. But there is a little more to the story, and we'll let him tell it:
"Self-explanatory plot. But also as I read on in the story it turned out that Diana was indeed home early but that was only because she had carried out an elaborate plot to cause her "friend" and rival to become so jealous that she would stop dating the young man that Diana had eyes for. Saying she was tired of the party she sweet talked the fellow into taking her home early. The hostess - Diana's so-called friend - saw this act and assumed that they were off to have a little, shall we say, private moment. The plan failed in more ways than one."
So Diana is hardly Little Miss Innocent here, and has definitely earned a spanking in our view. It might be well to remember that this is 1936 - not the height of the "flapper" era, perhaps, but not yet a generation removed from it either, so Diana can be thought of as at least part flapper, and as we have discussed elsewhere, flappers needed and deserved to be spanked to control their impulsive behavior. Parties of the type described here had become rather wild by the 1920's (see F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise for some hints as to what was going on), and Diana's father is right to be concerned about what she might be up to with some young man.
