Chicago Spanking Review

Teen-Age Romances #36 Spanking

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teen-age romances #36 cover

Pencils by Matt Baker. Published by St. John. Posted by the Web-Ed on 04/06/2012 (click to triple-size).

In Teen-Age Romances #3 (July 1949) there was an excellent spanking scene that we had known about for years before actually getting a scan of it. However, there was another spanking in this title, from Teen-Age Romances #36 (March, 1954) which we never dreamed existed until we saw it a few weeks ago. Like the earlier issue, the scans here come from the fabulous Golden-Age collection of JVJ, and once again the artist is Matt Baker (identified by John Benson), this time working with an unknown inker. We believe this scene has never before appeared on the 'net, so we're going to claim it as another CSR first although it's possible that some sharpies out there already knew about it.

"Love's Bad Girl" isn't the lead story in the book, but as we might expect it's the one with the spanking and there is a cover blurb for it even though the scene depicted on the cover is from a third story, "So Afraid of Love". The girl is a little shocked when the man instructs her to "take off those flimsy, wet clothes" (flimsy?), but in the story he's such a gentleman that he leaves her alone in the cabin and spends the night in his boat! Notice the use of the smoking pipe to suggest maturity on his part, a device that often appeared in comics until decades later.

Now back to "Love's Bad Girl". Already on the splash page we see that Diane is terribly selfish, giving no thought to her hard-working mother, Linda. She is a bad girl, and by Heaven, she needs to be spanked!

teen-age romances #36 love's bad girl splash page
teen-age romances #36 selfish diane teen-age romances #36 selfish diane

Interestingly, although her boyfriend Mark Cooper observes "Diane, you're such a selfish brat," it's not he who finally administers the OTK treatment she so richly deserves but the man who comes back into her mother's life, Reid. Although probably pushing forty, Reid is a very handsome man and Diane decides she wants him and his seemingly-glamorous writer's life. [Yes, we know all too well from personal experience that the writer's life is anything but glamorous; however, the teen-aged Diane does not.] She then actively tries to sabotage Linda's romance with Reid by making her feel guilty and by telling Reid that Linda is seeing another man.

We always hate to criticize any writer who puts a spanking into his script, but our unknown scribe here was obviously a man of limited narrative capabilities: he resorts to a chance meeting between Linda and Reid to expose Diane's rotten little plot. Reid resolves, "Wait until I get my hands on her...messing up our lives..."

Diane doesn't know it, but as of that moment her rear end is doomed!

teen-age romances #36 page 32

"If I'd had any idea of what was in store for me, I'd never have gone with Reid the following night." But she does go, and Reid finally gives her exactly what her scheming selfishness has earned: "And then without warning he pulled me over his lap..."

After the spanking, Diane threatens to tell her mother, and has the nerve to actually slap him! He should have taken her back over his knee right then! Diane gets off rather too easily since she deserved to get two more spankings, one from her mother and one from her long-suffering boyfriend, Mark.

teen-age romances #36 spanking page

Panel 5 is rather strange, and we're inclined to believe it's the writer's fault rather than Baker's. Reid is standing next to Diane and says, "We've been married six months now. How do you like your new step-father?" Diane replies, "He's made my mother very happy...and me." First, it's rather odd that the two couples are mixed up, with Reid next to Diane and Mark next to Linda. Second, we can't understand why Reid refers to himself in the third person. It would have made more sense if Reid and Mark changed places and Mark had taken the line with this alteration: "They've been married six months now..." Anyway, everyone seems to live happily ever after, and it's all because of one thing: spanking!

romantic marriage #18 spanking panel

The all-important spanking panel. "Someone should have done this long ago..." - classic words!

The OTK positioning is fairly good, perhaps a little insecure since Diane's hips are not centered over Reid's lap, but this is because Baker is trying to suggest that she's struggling during her spanking, and he does it well. She must be feeling the sting, because her legs are kicking and she's trying to put her right hand back to protect her fanny. Reid grasps her by the right shoulder to restrain her (we spankos know he should have taken her by the wrist instead). Also, because she's trying to twist away, her bottom isn't as well-presented to us as we might prefer, given that the camera angle isn't that far from straight on Reid (Diane's right side), which could allow us a rather nice view.

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