We come now to the third in our four-part mini-series on the British strip The Gambols. This
time, Gaye is compulsively buying too many hats. The consuling psychiatrist's advice? Spank her!
The Gambols January 29, 1960. Script by Dobs Appleby; art by Barry Appleby. Scan by Phil K. © Daily Express.
The Gambols January 29, 1960. Scan by Andre. © Daily Express.
The Gambols January 29, 1960. © Daily Express.
We think we are now in a position to solve a mystery posed by CSR Chief Strip Researcher
Phil Sweetspot
last week on the
Bulletin Board. Let's revisit his commentary on Gambols Spanking #1 here:
"This first of The Gambol's post is new to me, greatly appreciated and somewhat puzzling. A daily with five standard size panels would be highly unusual either in England or in the United States [by mid 20th century anyway]. I believe therefore that this was most likely published in the Daily Express Sunday edition. So we can reasonably narrow down the year of publication to 1957, 1963, 1968, 1974 or a slime possibility that it went to press in 1985. Given the nature of the gag, the fact that Gaye is wearing a mini-skirt, her friends hairstyle and that the women are in uniforms - reminiscent of the shop girls in the British sitcom Are you being served? - I would lean towards 1968 or 1974 but most likely the former. Then too this could be two dailies clipped, edited and placed together. If the scene in the company cafeteria is from one day, then that's not much of a gag now is it? If the visit to the chairman's office is also a separate gag it comes without explanation to readers who missed the build up. Okay, the idea that we're looking at two strips is possible but not probable, even though the panels come in two different sizes. If it is a single Sunday strip we seem to be missing a few frames."
Above we have seen three versions of Spanking #3. It is apparent that the vertical one, which seemingly imitated a Sunday strip, was obtained by using the first of the horizontal strips (the one discoverd by Phil K.) and the "slice and stack" method, as we shall call it. (See the strips again below, with the identical tell-tale photocopying defect in each one). Why did someone do this? We really have no idea, but the fact that we're dealing with a photocopy instead of a digital scan suggests someone wanted to reprint this episode in the pre-digital-printing era, i.e. when photostatic mock-ups of visual material were required. (Text alone could be handled by linotype machines or some other means - all of which sound so antiquated now).
To be honest, we've only really solved one mystery and that how this spanking (#3) came to be found in vertical form. Going back to #1, there's still the problem of why, if daily strips were cut and pasted, the result was not a number of panels that was a multiple of four (there are six). It's hard to escape the conclusion that two panels were cut out for some reason. Will we ever know the truth? Some reprint volumes of The Gambols were published, probably only in the U.K., and it may be that we can turn some of these up but the ones we've seen so far are a bit expensive.
Vertical version. Note photocopy error (surrounded in yellow). © Daily Express.
Horizontal version. Note same photocopy error, proving the source must have been the same. © Daily Express.
© Daily Express. Posted by the Web-Ed on 04/26/2019.
The spanking panel is pretty good, with better-than-average OTK positioning and Gaye's expression
telling us she's really feeling it! George looks a little too dour, as having a psychiatrist
prescribing spanking for a man's wife seems to us like it should really cheer him up! That particular gag, by the way - woman seeks psychiatric help only to find out spanking is the only
treatment she needs - will be familar to long-time CSR readers who have seen the old Humorama spanking
cartoons using it. (To find these, go to the
Home Page and type "psychiatrist"
in the search box).
