Chicago Spanking Review Special Series

The Humorama Spanking Cartoons!

#152 - Diploma Spanking

From Michael's collection, publication information unknown (click to quadruple-size). Posted by the Web-Ed on 8/09/2013.

When Michael sent this one to us from his collection only weeks ago, it aroused vague memories and we do believe we saw it somewhere a long time ago. It may have been a collection we found in a New York adult bookstore in the early 90's but later had to get rid of. In any case, we're glad to be able to include it in this series. It looks like Bill Ward's other cartoons from the late 50's, so we'll guess that's when it was first published. It's one of his better gags - an almost symbolic representation of life lessons learned the hard way, or as the sign on the wall says, "The School of Hard Knocks". It also anticipates by nearly 20 years Bernie Lettick's famous "Back to School" spanking cover for National Lampoon. In both of these the humor derives from an adult female student being spanked in school.

Here the college dean awards this young lady her diploma - in a somewhat unusual fashion - and her expression reveals that she didn't think graduation would be anything like this! Of course a diploma isn't as effective a spanking implement as a paddle, or even the slide rule Lettick thought of, but it is fairly humorous. The OTK positioning is also excellent, with a foot stool providing some upper-body support for our spankee, which she probably needs with her full-sized bosom (note, however, that she looks almost flat-chested compared to Ward's later work - another sign this was done in the 50's). We'd probably have made her bend over and place her hands on that stool for the paddle or cane. Ward did sometimes use the bending-over position, and we'll see his most extreme example of that position next time.

From Gee-Whiz (November 1956) (click to double-size).

From Joker (March 1976) (click to double-size). Posted by the Web-Ed on 10/24/2014.