Chicago Spanking Review

Josie #1

---> Doc Cylon Gallery

Josie of The Pussycats fame as drawn by an unknown artist. Bottom colorization by Doctor Cylon. © Archie Comic Publications, Inc. (click to increase in size). Posted by the Web-Ed on 09/08/2023.

Josie and the Pussycats were relative latecomers to the Archie mythos, having been created by Dan DeCarlo (who named Josie after his wife) and first offered to Publishers Syndicate in Chicago. Had they agreed to run Josie as a newspaper strip, DeCarlo would have benefited financially far more than he ever did from Archie Comics, to whom he eventually sold the title, because Archie like all other comics publishers always insisted on owning the characters. (Kids - never, never sell your characters outright to a comics publisher!) Josie was successful for Archie, getting her own book after first appearing in Archie's Pals 'n' Gals #23 (Winter 1963). DeCarlo, well-known to CSR readers for his spanking cartoons in Humorama, later sued Archie over the ownership of Josie and lost.

The Pussycats appeared some time later (1969), consisting of Melody and Valerie, and as far as we know, neither they nor Josie were ever spanked in any of the comics. (They sometimes made brief crossover appearances in the other Archie titles). Apparently Doctor Cylon thought that condition needed correcting, and gave Josie a nice red bottom to to along with her red hair. The bare-bottomed costume supplied by the unknown artist gave the Good Doctor just the opening he needed, in contrast to the tame ones the group actually wore in performance.