The next example of the comic strip discoveries made by Sweetspot is from Scorchy Smith, the only mention of which to have appeared in CSR up until now was in connection with Johnny Hazard, who spanked a spoiled playgirl in 1959, the connections being that Scorchy was an earlier aviation strip and that Frank Robbins, who started Johnny Hazard, had worked on Scorchy and obviously copied from it. In fact, a lot of artists worked on Scorchy, the most important being Robbins, the influential Noel Sickles, and the super-workhorse George Tuska (whose only known spanking scene was the well-drawn but unfortunately F/M one of Glory Forbes and her nephew). The one who concerns us here is Rodlaw Willard.
Little is known about Willard - his birth year is in dispute (1906 or 1911) and the date of his death is unknown - but he was active in magazines of the 1930's, newspapers in the 1960's, comic books for David McKay and Fiction House somewhere in between, and did Scorchy Smith from 1946-54. It was during the first year of his run on Scorchy that he did a story in which Scorchy gets involved with a Senator and his obstreperous daughter - she really needed a spanking, and she got one!
Scorchy Smith lives up to his name and scorches the behind of a Senator's daughter! Written and drawn by Rodlaw Willard. Publication date May 22, 1946. Discovered by and scanned by Sweetspot, taken from the Beatrice Daily Sun. Posted by the Web-Ed on 08/25/2017 (click to increase in size). © Associated Press Syndicate.
The Senator's daughter, Val, wears an expression that tells us she didn't mind being spanked one bit by the handsome Scorchy, although the dialogue (obviously not a Willard strong point) suggests otherwise. © Associated Press Syndicate.
The spanking panel. Scan by Sweetspot. © Associated Press Syndicate.
The spanking panel is quite good: effective OTK positioning, necessarily modified because there's nothing for Scorchy to sit on so he has to take her over a bent leg, the spankee's jacket raised allowing access to the seat of her pants, and the spankee is kicking in response to the sting. The scene would have been improved by some nice "pain stars" and perhaps more dismay in her expression. And speaking of her expression, the way she looks in the next day's strip is of some interest as it appears she enjoyed being firmly taken in hand - a quite normal female reaction.
To us, Willard still seems to be following Noel Sickles' stylistic lead even though Sickles was the second artist on the strip, not the first (John Terry was). Consequently this is not the "good girl" art of Matt Baker by any means (see Teen-Age Romances #3 for an example of Baker's work), yet the spanking is still somewhat sexy thanks mostly to the OTK positioning. Overall, a good scene and another feather in Sweetspot's well-plumed cap.
The spanking panel as modified by Hugob00m. Characters © Associated Press Syndicate.
CSR Resident Artist Hugob00m, as he often has in the past, decided to see what could be done to give a spanking panel a little more "Oomph" or "pizazz". He explains:
"I didn't want to make any drastic changes... so I just gave Val's backside a little more definition and made her pants a little tighter."Very tasteful improvements, and done with great subtlety we think - it could have been Willard's own work. Thanks, B00m!
Here's an example of what the strip looked like in color. We found this in Famous Funnies #148, reprinted from before Willard's tenure on the strip. The artist, Edmond Good, was in fact his immediate predecessor on the strip and seems to have been trying to follow the style of earlier artists.
Scorchy Smith as reprinted in Famous Funnies #148 (November 1946; original newpaper publication date unknown but obviously during the war years). The artist is Edmond Good (click to increase in size). © Associated Press Syndicate.
No other spankings are known from Scorchy Smith at this time, but because the strip ran until 1961 it is of course possible that one is still out there.
