Chicago Spanking Review

Teen-Age Romances #3 Spanking

Comics Gallery 2

We had known for years that there was a spanking in Teen-Age Romances #3 (July 1949) and that it had been reprinted in Diary Secrets #11 (April 1952), but we didn't know any of the details about it, nor were we able to snare a copy of either book. Then recently when a digital scan of Diary Secrets #11 from the fabulous collection of JVJ became available, we realized it was a remarkable spanking, of great interest both intrinsically and historically. The scans seen here are all from JVJ's collection except for the cover of Teen-Age Romances #3.

Teen-Age Romances #3 (July 1949). Published by St. John. Cover art by Matt Baker. Posted by the Web-Ed on 09/16/2011.

Reprint issue Diary Secrets #11 (April 1952). Cover art by Matt Baker.

"I Was Afraid To Fall In Love" was penned by an unknown writer to whom we must be grateful for including a spanking in the plot of what was otherwise a fairly standard romantic melodrama. The historical interest is in the artist: Matt Baker was one of the foremost "good girl" artists of the Golden Age, and interest in his work has remained keen among comics collectors almost from that day to this. ["Good Girl Art" (GGA) is simply comic art featuring sexy girls.] We've seen Baker's art on CSR before, from the famous cover of Phantom Lady #17 and in our Skygirl special feature, but we had lamented the absence of any spankings from his pencil, not knowing that he was the artist on the one from Teen-Age Romances #3.

Baker was an excellent romance comic artist apart from GGA considerations, and in the splash panel below you can see how well he communicates Linda's calculating nature through her posture and facial expression - the sly minx!

Splash page of "I Was Afraid To Fall In Love". Art by Matt Baker.

We next see our main characters together at the beach of the private club where Linda's father is a big wheel and John has been hired as the lifeguard. Linda deliberately catches John's attention with her pretty face and curvy figure, then takes off in the skiff reserved for emergency life-saving. She's behaving like a perfect brat, and we all know how brats should be dealt with!

By the way, the writer makes a time error here, having Linda tell us first that "Early the following morning, I dressed and drove down to the club" and later that "I rode about in the skiff all afternoon, returning it at sundown" (emphasis added). We lost most of the morning and part of the afternoon somewhere, and that's a mighty long day of scheming, even for a brat like Linda, but we'll forgive the writer's mistakes since he made up for all of them by including a spanking scene. Speaking of which, it's high time Linda got her comeuppance, don't you think?...

At last - the spanking! (Click to double-size).

The spanking is very well done, fully justified by the spankee's bad behavior, with sexy participants clad in swimwear, realistic expressions, and good OTK positioning - a satisfying scene indeed!

Cimm posted the spanking panel on the SpankingPanels Forum, and Spiritworks then followed up with these two interesting montages he had apparently done some time before.

Spiritworks. Note that in the spanking panel, he added a line to define the buttocks a little more clearly.

Spiritworks. Again, notice the subtle added line.

Post-spanking caption. Linda admits to her humiliation, but unfortunately doesn't mention having a sore bottom.

Although Linda doesn't immediately fall into John's arms after the spanking, somewhat implausibly the two are happily united by the story's end.

A fashion note: Although the bikini had been invented by the time this story appeared, Linda's suit is of the two-piece design that preceded it. A very similar suit may be found in Frontier Romances #1, which also appeared in 1949 - a good year for swimsuit spanking!

There are no scans of the spanking panel from Teen-Age Romances #3 currently available, but it must have looked substantially the same as the one seen here except perhaps for some coloring differences. Strangely enough, according to Ripley TAR #3 is actually not as hard to find in grades above VG (very good) as DS #11, with both books being regarded as scarce in any high grade, which probably explains why our own search came up empty.

Teen-Age Romances #3 (July 1949, from the collection of JVJ). Published by St. John. Cover art by Matt Baker. Posted by the Web-Ed on 01/18/2013 (click to double-size).

01/18/2013 Update: When we first presented this spanking in 2011, we noted that all the scans except one were taken from the reprinted version in Diary Secrets #11. What we didn't know then was that JVJ also had in his collection the original version, Teen-Age Romances #3, scans of which have since become available, so let's take a look now at the cover and of course the spanking panel.

Here is the cover, just slightly touched-up by us, and with our spanking couple John and Linda featured prominently.

Original version, from Teen-Age Romances #3 (click to increase in size).