Chicago Spanking Review

Rusty Ryan Spanks Amazon

© Quality Publications. Posted by the Web-Ed on 07/23/2010.

© Quality Publications.

Here we have one of our own original discoveries, never before seen on the web as far as we know. Feature Comics was the early flagship of Busy Arnold's Quality Comics line. Originally, it had run reprints of three popular newspaper strips, Joe Palooka, Mickey Finn, and Dixie Dugan, along with various filler strips, but as more talent joined the company, their own new in-house features took the newspaper strips' place, still supplemented by filler. By the way, Dixie Dugan had a spanking of its own in 1935 as we'll see another day, while Big Top, one of the fillers (see cover, top center), had some silly clown paddlings we have documented in the Comics Spanking Data Base.

By the time issue #132 came out in March 1949, Doll Man, probably the most successful of the Quality super-heroes, had taken over as the lead feature. Fans of the Silver Age Atom will recognize the debt that character owed to Doll Man, who could shrink at will to doll-size (the Golden Age Atom did not have this ability - he was just a short guy with a big punch). We've searched every comic with Doll Man we could get our hands on, but found no spankings, perhaps because he was too small to get any female villains over his knee. Fortunately, Doll Man was ably supported in Feature Comics by Rusty Ryan, who did give one spanking. (Don't look now, but it appears we've finally come to the point).

Rusty Ryan was a strip that during the war years saw Rusty and his Boy Brigadiers assisting the army in its war efforts. After the war, it lasted for several more years as a fairly conventional adventure strip. Above right is the page preceding the spanking: Rusty and his sidekicks Alababa and Pierpont have arrived on Taboo Island, which as they discover is ruled by the Viper and her modern Amazons. All three men are captured and brought before the Viper. Rusty realizes they're in a tight spot, and thinks "If I let them get the upper hand, we're sunk. My idea's a simple one, but it might work!"

In case you can't guess what Rusty's idea is, let's take a look:

The stars go flying as Rusty spanks the Viper! © Quality Publications.

Rusty gives Viper a spanking! And the dialogue is great: "There's only one way to handle a smug little gal like you!" "A good, sound, spanking will do you good!" (we were just thinking the same thing ourselves). Maybe the best thing about this is Rusty's reasoning - by spanking Viper, he humbles her in the eyes of her followers, causing her empire to crumble and the men, who had previously been enslaved by the women, to become free. Ah, spanking - is there anything it can't do?

© Quality Publications.

Post-spanking, things are looking up: the men are free, and Rusty's parting remark to Viper is, "I don't think you'll cause any more trouble. But don't get greedy, or I'll come back and give you another spanking!" We love it when the man threatens another spanking if the woman doesn't behave herself - the only thing we like better is some rueful rubbing of the affected area. There is some obvious ethnic stereotyping going on for humorous effect, with Alababa and Pierpont narrowly escaping the clutches of two now-adoring females, but we don't think it's really offensive given the standards of the day.

We think the story and artwork are by Paul Gustavson, whom Jim Steranko credits in his History of Comics with drawing many of Rusty Ryan's adventures. As can be seen, Gustavson was a perfectly capable artist, and he spent a number of years in comics until the market began to dry up, after which time he went to work as a surveyor and engineer for the State of New York. This is the only spanking of his we have seen, but we'll keep looking.