Chicago Spanking Review

Smilin' Jack Spanking #4


cover of smilin jack super book #19

Published in 1946. Posted by the Web-Ed on 12/24/2010.

Next in our Smilin' Jack series is perhaps the most important spanking that occurred in the strip. We hesitate to make that judgment although we think we've now seen all of them, but when your lead character spanks his employer's daughter (who also happens to be the woman he's going to marry later in the strip's run), thus winning her father's respect (and perhaps hers too), it has to be reckoned a significant event.

Before we get to the good stuff (the spanking), we should mention that the scans we see here were taken from the fourth time this sequence was put into print, from the Super Book of Comics that was offered by Omar bread. This is not the only time a spanking scene was found in a food-item giveaway (see Captain Marvel Spanks Wildcat for Wheaties' contribution to the literature). It appeared originally during Smilin' Jack's newspaper run (1940, exact date unknown [Later determined to be April 25 - see below]) and then was reprinted in Dell's Popular Comics #94 (Dec. 1943, which also featured an unrelated M/M spanking from Gasoline Alley on the cover!) and Four Color #58 (1944). It may even have been reprinted again in 1947 for another giveaway, this one by Western Oil Co.(!), but that's just our guess and these books are so scarce we have no way to know for sure at the present time.

As part of our Great Golden Age Search we looked at every Dell comic we could find, but these three were not among them. Therefore, we are grateful to SpankingPanels.com, who have their own copy of the book, for most of the scans we see here.

jack rolls up his sleeves

Jack works for Mr. Beaverduck flying his daughter Joy and her pals around (actually, he acts as Joy's co-pilot). She irresponsibly cuts the engine, forcing a difficult dead-stick landing on a beach and resisting Jack's efforts to take the controls. As we see in the two panels at left, after making the landing Jack's got spanking on his mind, and we can't blame him!

jack gets hold of joy and prepares to spank her

Zack Mosley demonstrates that he knows how to build up suspense by showing us the motivation for the spanking to come and the growing dread on the part of the spankee-to-be as she reads her fate in the Jack's eyes:

"You're gonna get what you've needed for years!"

jack gets hold of joy and prepares to spank her

Jack is about to begin when two of Joy's pals try to come to her assistance. Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for us), they're somewhat inebriated and Jack is able to dispose of them with one punch.

smilin' jack spanks spoiled joy beaverduck

With nothing more standing in the way, Jack administers a much-needed spanking and he does so with vigor. This is another thing that Mosley does very well - every spanking of his we've seen features good, solid whacks that are sure to be felt! After the spanking, he dunks her in the surf. It may have been this scene that inspired Joe Gill to add a similar post-spanking dunking in Just Married #58.

Four of her friends seem pretty amused by the spanking - a reasonable attitude. A fifth is just emerging from the plane, and her expression is harder to read (not surprising since she didn't get a chance to see the build-up to the spanking), while the two guys Jack knocked down are just sitting on the beach, dazed.

smilin' jack spanks spoiled joy beaverduck

Here is an alternate scan of the spanking panel, along with a truncated post-spanking scene in which Joy is actually crying, probably more from the humiliation than anything else. She implies that she's going to report Jack to her father, but when the two drunken partiers that Jack knocked down earlier try to send him a telegram, Joy tears it up, suggesting that she wants to keep Jack close at hand. This implies the spanking made her respect and desire him as a man.

joy's father spproves of jack spanking her

Figuring he's in trouble with her father, Jack nonetheless doesn't back down, maintaining that he was right to spank her (just try to imagine one of those pathetic "metrosexual" types common in today's popular culture acting in so masculine a fashion). To his surprise, Mr. Beaverduck applauds his action: "My boy, I've been intending to do what you did to her for years!"

So all's well that ends well, and as we mentioned earlier, at some later point in the strip Jack and Joy get married. Another happy ending, courtesy of spanking!

There was another occasion when Jack spanked Joy, but we don't know where it stands chronologically in relation to this one. We will present it as Smilin' Jack Spanking #9. [06/29/2018 Note: we now know that this was from the original strip version of the spanking (1940) and was not a separate spanking. Because the page for "#9" has been around so long and incidentally features the Smilin' Jack index, we're going to leave it in place.]


12/18/2015 Update: As we mentioned, the strip was reprinted for the first time in Popular Comics #94 (Dec. 1943) and we have some scans from that book now.

joy deserves a spanking in popular comics #94

We have more of the context now, and can see that Joy was taking a dangerous chance. Mosley does make one mistake in the dialogue - he has Jack refer to "beating" a woman who would cut a plane's ignition instead of "spanking" her.

joy gets a spanking in popular comics #94

We do get a clearer sense of the story's flow than we had before, and these scans are perfectly clean (thanks to Etapi_Sooth and Darkmark for providing them).

We mentioned above that there was a third reprinting in Four Color #58, but that book is not in the public domain and as we are unlikely to be able to find a copy for our personal collection, we may never get to see it on CSR. [Later note: we were eventually able to get some scans from this book - see below]. Also, there may have been a fourth reprinting(!) for Western Oil, but that has never been confirmed. Still, the scans we have here should satisfy everyone.


06/29/2018 Update: Thanks to CSR Chief Strip Researcher Sweetspot, we now have scans of the original newspaper strips, and these have yielded a wealth of new information beginning with the publication dates. Let's take a look:

joy deserves a spanking in smilin jack 04/25/1940

The great spanking took place on April 25, 1940. Story and art by Zack Mosley. It's possible that Mosley's title "On the Beach at Wacky-Whacky" was a sort of play on Pago Pago, which as the capital of American Samoa would probably have been known to contemporary readers at least by name. Scan by Sweetspot. © Chicago Tribune Syndicate.

smilin jack 04/29/1940

Smilin' Jack April 29, 1940. Scan by Sweetspot. © Chicago Tribune Syndicate

smilin jack 04/30/1940

Smilin' Jack April 30, 1940. Scan by Sweetspot. © Chicago Tribune Syndicate

smilin jack 05/03/1940

Smilin' Jack May 3, 1940. Scan by Sweetspot. © Chicago Tribune Syndicate

Now here is a new scene of Jack and Mr. Beaverduck we haven't seen before, and the dialogue is certainly intriguing. We already knew that Mr. Beaverduck approved of Jack spanking his daughter Joy, but now we see that he's giving the green light for more spankings in the future when Jack observes, "With enough firm disciplining, I think the stubbornness could be knocked out of her!" Whoo-ee!

Below is the spanking panel, which seen close up like this solves another mystery: where did the spanking we had named "Smilin' Jack #9" come from? It's obvious now that it's merely another shot of this spanking (04/25/1940), but why couldn't we see that earlier? Well, while there were some clues, this fine close-up shot was omitted from the Omar Bread Super Book of Comics (the first source we had although it was the fourth to see print chronologically) and also from Dell Four Color #58 (see below) and presumably from the other reprints as well.

the spanking panel from smilin jack 04/25/1940

The spanking panel, tragically omitted from the strip reprints. Scan by Sweetspot. © Chicago Tribune Syndicate

smilin jack on the cover of dell four color #58

Dell Four Color #58 (1944). © Chicago Tribune Syndicate

The third printing of this story came from Dell's Four Color #58. Dell didn't make things easy for the future comics historian, for the indicia has no month, no code number, and gives the title as "Smilin' Jack #58" which is obviously incorrect (#57 had featured Gene Autry). Anyway, we're sure the year is 1944.

The spanking page is shown below, and once again it omits the close-up spanking panel.

smilin jack spanks joy beaverduck in dell four color #58

Dell Four Color #58 (1944). © Chicago Tribune Syndicate. Web-Ed can't remember where he found this scan, probably Ebay, but he posted it on 06/29/2018.


next page button NEXT ENTRY - Smilin' Jack #5.
previous page button PREVIOUS ENTRY - Smilin' Jack #1, 2, and 3
return to comics page button COMICS PAGE 2 - Return to Comics Page 2
return to home page button HOME - Return to Home Page