The last spanking in Patsy Walker was not of Patsy herself but a switching of her archrival Hedy Wolfe - and at her own request! As we did last time, we once again lament that the actual spanking takes place off-panel (to be precise, immediately after the last panel), but as it too bears a striking similarity to other scenes in Marvel's Golden Age humor books we're going to present it in this gallery instead of over on the Bulletin Board. We didn't discover this one; we believe it first appeared on artist Mitch O'Connell's blog, but we were the first to identify the exact source as Patsy Walker #62 (January 1956). Thanks to Alan, who forwarded it to us, and to Robin for bringing Patsy Walker generally to our attention.
The story: Patsy and the gang are enjoying a day in the great outdoors when Hedy, who is always trying to date Buzz despite already having a semi-steady boyfriend in Ronnie (the blond guy who's right there roasting a hot dog below), hatches yet another scheme: bribing Buzz with the promise that he can drive her daddy's new Jaguar. Buzz is agreeable, but unknown to Hedy or the reader at this point, he already has a date with Patsy. Afraid of Patsy's influence, Hedy determines to keep the two of them from having any time to converse. She imitates the sound of a rattlesnake and then disturbs a wasps' nest, each time forcing Patsy and Buzz to run away before they can really talk to each other.
Patsy and the gang: from left to right, Tubs, Hedy, Buzz, Nancy, Ronnie, Patsy. © Marvel Characters Inc.
But her scheme backfires when Buzz doesn't have the chance to break his date with Patsy, and so tells her he can't joyride with her in the Jaguar that night. Hoisted with her own petard, Hedy requests that Nancy paddle her behind with a pretty good-sized stick. © Marvel Characters Inc.
© Marvel Characters Inc.
Hedy Wolf bends over to receive a well-deserved switching from Nancy Brown. Pencils by Al Jaffee (for other possible credits see narrative at right). © Marvel Characters Inc. Posted by the Web-Ed on 01/20/2023.
Hedy bends over with her hands below her knees, arching her back nicely (the effect is slightly understated by the artist) and providing Nancy with an excellent target for what appears to be an oversized switch. It's too bad no strokes are shown, but we can be pretty sure they were applied to the deserving Hedy's rear end.
Al Jaffee is generally still credited for pencilling the book at this time, but we're not
entirely convinced, and who was the inker? Nick Caputo thinks it possible that it was
Al Hartley, but again we have our doubts, this time based on Hartley's inking
over his own pencils when he took over the book
from Jaffe with issue #67. Of we think greater interest is the script: the Grand Comics
Data Base credits it to Jaffee, but based on the similarity of the "penance spanking" as
we will call it in four other very similar scenes, we suspect that at least an outline
of this story's plot is due to a gentleman by the name of Stan Lee
. We'll have more to say about that in
Millie the Model #27.
It's possible that there is an undiscovered spanking for Patsy or her pals still out there, but because we haven't finished researching that question at the time this page is being composed (January 2023), we're going to give a complete chronological checklist of all the "Patsy Walker Family" spankings here and update it later if necessary. Items not posted in CSR are in boldface.
- Patsy Walker #3 (1946 - Nancy with pillow strapped to behind)
- Patsy Walker #5 (1946 - Mr. Wolfe/Hedy)
- Patsy Walker #7 (1946 - Patsy with pillow strapped to behind)
- Patsy Walker #10 (1947 Nancy/Principal Tuff)
- Teen Comics #25 (1948 Mr. Wolf/Hedy)
- Patsy Walker #22 (1949 Mother/Turpentine OTK)
- Patsy Walker #34 (1951 Good Patsy/Bad Patsy)
- Patsy Walker #41 (1952 - Patsy with pillow strapped to behind for the 2nd time)
- Patsy Walker #42 (1952 - Hedy with pillow strapped to behind)
- Patsy Walker #62 (1956 - this page - Nancy/Hedy)
- Defenders #70 (1979 - Lunatik/Patsy (as Hellcat))
