Posted by the Web-Ed on 01/14/2010
For the new year we inaugurate a new series, "The Weirdest Comic-Book Spankings of All Time", the first four of which feature robots, with this issue of Adventure from March 30, 1935. Not to be confused with the more famous DC publication Adventure Comics, this was apparently a British publication aimed at a young male audience ("Big news for every boy inside"). The cover may well represent a wish-fulfillment of every boy who was forced to spend his schooldays dreading the master's cane (caning of course still being very common in that era) - that some person in authority would rescue him from the oppressive figure of the master and mete out the same punishment the master had himself administered to so many others. Strange, though, that the rescuer should take the form of a robot.
Why a robot? It may have been that caning was so deeply embedded into British society that rescue by a source such as a father or the law would have seemed unthinkable, leaving only the fantastic notion of a mechanical man. Science fiction as a genre was certainly around by the mid-1930's, although not so pervasive as it was to become in the 1950's (we'll have more to say on that subject in a later entry), so perhaps the boys had some nodding acquaintance with robots. Even so, we think it's weird enough to qualify for this series. Presumably, the robot is using its hand to effect retribution rather than either of the two canes on the desk because the master would not cooperate for a caning the way a pupil would.
