Chicago Spanking Review

Stuart Taylor Spanks Amazon Queen in Jumbo Comics #17

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From Jumbo Comics #17 (July 1940). Published by Fiction House and posted by the Web-Ed on 03/11/2011.

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle was the headline feature in Jumbo Comics, but it was from a secondary strip with a limited run, Stuart Taylor, that this nice spanking panel was taken. We'll see further excerpts from this somewhat confused story in a moment, but let's examine the spanking itself first. The OTK positioning is excellent, with the Amazon Queen held securely and well-bent over Stuart's lap, her bottom raised high for easy access. Yes, our spankee here is really the Queen of the Amazons, and the temptation to see the arrogant humbled once again proved too strong to resist for comics creators - fortunately for us! Of course, the scene would have been improved if a closer shot were used, with a larger panel and the Queen's face visible. Also, some after-the-spanking rubbing and a verbal acknowledgement of the spanking's efficacy would not have been amiss, either.

Now let's take a look at the splash page. One of several odd things about this story is the strip subtitle, "Weird Stories of the Supernatural", when the scientific apparatus on display should make it clear that nothing supernatural is involved. Anyway, we meet two of our main characters, Stuart Taylor and Dr. Hayward, as Stuart decides it would be a good idea to use their time machine to pay a courtesy call on Alexander the Great.

They decide to let Stuart's fiancee Laura come with them. Now rather strangely for a time-travel story, historical accuracy does not seem to be the primary concern here since the Amazons did not figure in Alexander's conquest of the known world but they do figure prominently in the plot here. We not complaining, exactly, since you can't have spanked Amazons without the Amazons, and there's nothing we like better than spanked Amazons! Anyway, the Queen causes some trouble, so Stuart decides to carry her off to Alexander who will "teach you who's master - man or woman!"

We like that kind of talk, but even better is that Stuart decides to spank the Queen right away, before Alexander can get the chance to do likewise. With the Amazons in hot pursuit, there's no time for a lengthy spanking, and unfortunately Alexander never gave the Queen another one later in the story as we'd have liked.

The Queen is taken to Alexander, but they reach an understanding without any further spanking (darn!). The Queen's hairstyle reminds us of Princess Leia's in Star Wars. Why that occurs to us now we couldn't say since we know little about women's hair styles and care less, unless it's that Leia needed a spanking, too.

Laura and Stuart from page 2.

Laura and Stuart from page 3.

Because many comics from this era were shop-produced (we presume it was the Eisner-Iger shop in this case), it can be very difficult to determine who the creative personnel were. Complicating matters here is the fact that apparently two different pencillers worked on this story. You can see from the panels above that a change clearly takes place between pages two and three, and it's not just that Stuart loses his shirt while Laura seems to have stripped down to her underwear! (We distinctly remember the same thing happening once in an old issue of Iron Man: Gene Colan was the regular artist, but he became ill and Jack Kirby had to take over after page 2).

We don't suppose that the writer will ever by identified, which is a pity since the spanking scene was his idea, but when indexing this issue for The Grand Comics Data Base Henry Steele credited the art (which we'll interpret as meaning from page 3 on) to Nick Cardy. Cardy is one of the more important artists in comics history, so a spanking drawn by him (assuming Steele is correct) is certainly noteworthy.

Cover of Teen Titans #23, with art by Nick Cardy. © DC Comics Inc.

Cardy was active in comics from the 40's through the 70's, and with the 40's today fading from living memory is probably now best-known for his 70's work at DC. (We can spot a Cardy-cover on a 70's DC book in an instant, by the way, but we're much less familiar with his earlier style, which is why we haven't chimed in with our own opinion about this issue of Jumbo Comics).

Here's an example of his work on Teen Titans #23 (September-October 1969) where he did both the cover and the interior art. Cardy designed a new costume for Wonder Girl; prior to this issue her costume was basically a Junior Miss version of Wonder Woman's. Cardy was capable of rendering an exceptionally beautiful female face, nor did he stint when it came to the female figure. We think that were it not for his portrayal of Wonder Girl, she would not have been depicted in as many works of spanking art as she was more than thirty years later, although later artists, particularly George Perez on The New Teen Titans, had something to do with this also. If you've ever wanted to see Wonder Girl spanked, you can thank Nick Cardy!

Posted by the Web-Ed on 10/17/2014 (click to increase in size).

10/17/2014 Update: Here is a new version of the spanking panel, taken from paper rather than microfiche.