Chicago Spanking Review Special Series

The Humorama Spanking Cartoons!

#108 - Paul Hamilton in the Pink Spanking

From Mike's collection, source believed to be the cartoon's 2nd printing in the April 1968 issue of Gaze. Scanned and posted by the Web-Ed on 10/05/2012 (click to double-size).

Here we have one of the stranger spanking cartoons from Humorama. The gag is relatively straightforward - the man is spanking the woman to keep her "in the pink of condition" which sounds like it was written by editor Abe Goodman because he put some prose spanking references along that line in the digests - but nothing else about it is clear. To begin with, we can't tell where this takes place. Is this a hospital (it looks like an old-fashioned hospital bed) with a doctor spanking his patient? Then there's that verbiage at the top: we've often left in the two or three-line gags at the top of the page to preserve the original flavor of these digests, but in this case we have what purports to be a letter with no discernible humorous content. (There were no letters sections in any of the digests, nor is there a Sherman Blvd. in Detroit Michigan, although there is one in Muskegon if you want to drive across the state.)

Putting in this strange missive also caused both the top and bottom of the cartoon to be truncated, including the artist's signature. We were able to identify him as Paul Hamilton from some other (non-spanking) cartoons (see below). Hamilton is himself rather a strange case, without a consistent style throughout his Humorama career. He seems to be one of those guys who has to borrow the techniques of other artists, yet unlike most of that type, he clearly put a fair amount of effort into his work. Here he seems to have studied Dan DeCarlo, but although he gets the finishing effects right, the basics are lacking: his perspective looks slightly off somehow, the spankee's bosom is lopsided (we don't think spanking will help that, although it's worth a try), and the hem of her slip or cami-knickers wasn't sewn in a straight line! (This appears to be Hamilton's wrestling with perspective, seen also in the unequal sizes from side to side of her thighs and buttocks).

Another cartoon by Paul Hamilton, from Joker.

Here's another of Hamilton's cartoons, taken from Joker, that shows his complete signature. He's still channeling DeCarlo, and the perspective doesn't call attention to itself this time, nor are the bosoms lopsided, but the 2nd girl has a strange, hunching posture. And that's how it is with Hamilton - there's always something a little off in his drawing. Yet he contributed many cartoons to Humorama over the years (we've seen perhaps twenty or thirty), with only the one "spanker".

From the collection of Dan Rivera (publication details unknown; click to double-size).

11/02/2012 Update: Dan Rivera posted this un-truncated version of the cartoon, which may very well be a photostatic copy of its first appearance, on the CSR Bulletin Board. Note that Hamilton's complete signature is now revealed.