The movies became such a popular art form that it is no surprise they affected comics. Some comics were simply versions of films or of film serials - many Western comics fell into this category - while other comics (typically Romance) had covers or interior pages devoted to the movie stars of the day. One comic strip seems to have followed this pattern also - Seein' Stars by Feg Murray. As far as we can tell, it ran on Sundays from 1946-49. Maurice Horn makes no mention of it in his Encyclopedia of Comics, presumably because the feature isn't truly in the comics medium but really just text illustrated in comic-strip style, and the only references to it we have found are in the sales either of the original art or of the printed strip. The present example is in the latter category although our records don't indicate its exact origin. Probably either we found it ourselves on Ebay or it came from JS666.
Seein' Stars exact date unknown, c.1948 (click to increase in size). © King Features Syndicate.
The spanking. © King Features Syndicate.
As a spanking it rates only fair - for one thing Edward Arnold is spanking with the wrong hand, as noted in the text - but it's not bad. The immediate question becomes: was there a spanking in the movie Dear Ruth? It appears the answer is no, but there is a publicity still, and for the story "behind" it we must refer to the Dear Ruth page in the Stage Screen & TV Gallery (follow the link).
