The cover of Patsy Walker #34 (May 1947). Art by Al Jaffee. © Marvel Characters Inc.
It's an actual on-panel spanking for Patsy Walker this time, or at least for her bad side. The device used here is to depict a character's good and bad sides as miniature "angel" and "Devil" versions of that person, and used to appear frequently in comics and animation although it would be surprising to see it these days. In this case, as we'll see, Good and Bad Patsy tend to get a bit physical with one another. Thanks again to Robin for bringing this one to our attention.
Our story, which comes from Patsy Walker #34 (May 1947), is called "Nice Advice" and begins with Patsy feeling an understandable temptation (personnified as Evil Patsy - she is a teen-age girl, after all) to date Tony Hartwell, whose family has recently moved into the neighborhood. But she has a steady boyfriend, Buzz Baxter, so she struggles with her conscience (personnified as the angelic Good Patsy).
After receiving some not-very-helpful advice from her family, Patsy finally decides to talk about the problem with her arch-rival, Hedy Wolfe. © Marvel Characters Inc.
Unsurprisingly, Hedy is all in favor of playing the field, and for the moment, Evil Patsy triumphs over Good Patsy, even giving her a boot to the rear! However, the devilish girl soon gets her own fanny warmed when Tony declines to date Patsy because he already has a steady girlfriend, and Buzz decides to go out with Hedy because Patsy told him she wasn't feeling well. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave...!" © Marvel Characters Inc.
Good finally triumphs over Evil, and spanks her with a toothbrush-paddle as well! © Marvel Characters Inc. (Posted by the Web-Ed on 11/12/2022)
Since the Good and Evil Patsys are just the two sides of Patsy herself, the final spanking of Evil Patsy is actually a kind of self-spanking and we have to wonder if beneath the symbolism of this panel (notice that Evil Patsy is dressed just like Patsy while Good Patsy wears a more angelic costume) Patsy might not be taking a hairbrush to her own behind. This sort of last-panel penance was not uncommon in the Marvel/Timely comics of this period, as we will see in the future (and have already seen in Venus #2), but this one doesn't quite follow the pattern of the others, which at the moment we believe were scripted by Stan Lee and did not feature what is in effect a self-spanking but involved someone other than the penitent herself wielding the paddle. The reason is simple: Al Jaffee is still doing the script as well as the pencils (and possibly the inking as well! We introduced Jaffe to CSR readers last time in Patsy Walker #17). Of course Lee was still the editor-in-chief, and could have had some influence on the story's plot.
