We mentioned last time that Popeye didn't even appear in E.C. Segar's Thimble Theatre until 1929. By 1932, the time of our next example, he was firmly established as the star of the very successful strip. It should be stressed how different Thimble Theatre was from "slice of life" strips like Out Our Way or Frank King's Gasoline Alley, with scenes of ordinary life replaced by the comic and fantastic tales of Popeye, Olive, Wimpy, Swee'Pea, etc. The recognition that comics did not have to be naturalistic, that the medium easily supported far-out fantasy, certainly aided its development by opening the door to new possibilities.
Now let's get to the spanking, the second of three with Olive as the spankee discovered by Sweetspot.
Olive Oyl is spanked by her father, Cole Oyl. Thimble Theatre, June 10, 1932. Scan by Sweetspot. © King Features Syndicate
Thimble Theatre, June 11, 1932. Scan by Sweetspot. © King Features Syndicate
Although as we observed last time Olive is probably no one's ideal spankee, there are a number of good things about this scene: the way Olive obeys her father's command to "Come to me!" tells us she's been spanked before and knows there's no escape, the OTK positioning is good, and in the next day's strip, Olive is definitely not ready to sit down!
Popeye's characteristic laugh, "Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!", is one of the ways Segar made him a unique character, along with the obvious spinach-eating and world-beating strength. As for Olive, her "Baw!" is classic comics shorthand for the noise made by the spankee as a spanking progresses. As Sweetspot has noted, "BAW is a descriptive word used in many a spanking scene going back into the 1920s". Segar had probably picked it up from somewhere.
The spanking panel. Scan by Sweetspot. © King Features Syndicate. Posted by the Web-Ed on 11/10/2017. © King Features Syndicate
