In Hollywood Johnnie, we told the sad tale of a spanking from that strip being mis-identified as coming from Kerry Drake until Sweetspot, in trying to nail down the details, found out its true identity. There may have been something about Kerry Drake that made people want to label other strips with its name, because while looking through daily episodes of that strip, Sweetspot discovered that it happened again! This time, thankfully, the mistake was not ours but that of the newspaper editor who put the comics page together as we'll see in a moment. The best thing is while it once again is not Kerry Drake, it is a newly-discovered, never-before-seen (in the spanko world) spanking from a comic strip!
We believe that in the pre-digital age when putting together a comics page from different strips that were distributed by different syndicates, a lot of cut-and-paste-up work had to be done. Somehow, the editor here put "Kerry Drake" and "Alfred Andriola" above the wrong strip for April 7, 1971. The eyepatch suggested that since neither Kerry Drake nor his brother Lefty wore one the spanker was actually Jeff Cobb, and the strip dated April 10 confirmed this identification.
Let's take a look at the spanking now. Apparently our spankee, Dee Savage, is part of a nefarious plot to pressure an old man to sell his property. Jeff Cobb, investigative reporter, has befriended the old man and takes matters into his hands - and Dee over his knee!
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Jeff Cobb spanks Dee Savage for her role in a plot to force an old man to sell his property. This is not Kerry Drake, despite the erroneous title above the strip. Written and drawn by Pete Hoffman. Publication date April 7, 1971. Scan by Sweetspot. Posted by the Web-Ed on 07/14/2017 (click to increase in size). © General Features Corp.
The next day (April 8), the editor made exactly the same mistake, and once again Jeff Cobb was mislabeled "Kerry Drake". Artist/writer Pete Hoffman believed that the story was more critical than the art to a strip's success, but here he lets the art tell the story, giving us four consecutive wordless panels (including the spanking panel). As a matter of fact, his layout is quite effective, and below we see that Dee is still fuming while her derriere is still stinging (panel 2). She looks rather like the prototypical man-hating feminist, although we can't say for sure that'a an accurate description.
B.J. thinks Dee is "already getting results" but in fact it's Cobb who's doing that - he's giving a stinging, red bottom to Dee! Publication date April 8, 1971. Scan by Sweetspot (click to increase in size). © General Features Corp.
It's always nice to have a spanking mentioned later, especially if it embarrasses the spankee. Dee is nowhere to be seen as Jeff tells the old man that he's "spanked those ideas out of her," so we'd say a repeat treatment is in order.
The spanking panel from 04/07/1971.
The spanking panel is really quite good. The OTK positioning is correct, with Jeff's knees not too far apart, and Dee's legs are kicking uselessly as the sting in her seat increases, and Jeff looks like he means business. Hoffman had the sense to provide a proper object - in this case a section of a log - for Jeff to sit on. Many times we've seen the spankee just being held up in mid-air because the artist didn't think to provide the spanker with a proper seat. The black pants don't give us much view of the target, though.
Speaking of blacks, Hoffman almost looks like he was influenced by the way Frank Robbins utilized very heavy blacks (see Johnny Hazard Spanking for Robbins' only known spanking scene). Who Hoffman's other influences might have been we can't say. He got his start in comics ghosting Steve Roper under Elmer Woggon's signature, and we certainly can't blame him for wanting to move on from such unhappy circumstances to doing his own strip. General Features bought the idea of Jeff Cobb, and the strip began on June 19, 1954. It was reasonably successful, lasting until 1978, and it is of course possible that there's another spanking in it somewhere.
