Chicago Spanking Review Special Presentation

2011 - A Year of Humorama Spanking Cartoons!

#15 - A True Redskin, by Bill Wenzel

Scanned from Mike's collection and posted by the Web-Ed on 04/08/2011 (click to double-size).

It's hard to come up with Indian (or First American, if you prefer) spanking gags - just try it sometime - so we can't blame Bill Wenzel for not coming up with something better than this one, which plays on the double-meaning of "redskin". This term would not have been considered offensive back in the 1950's, although you wouldn't likely see it used today.

The OTK positioning is fairly good, with the spankee at least securely positioned this time, and with a nice, round, well-defined bottom. She has that expression of indifference we often see in Wenzel's non-spanking work, which leads us to believe the spanking has not yet begun. Once it has, we'd expect the look on her face to change considerably!

This is another CSR exclusive that we scanned from Mike's collection and which is new to the web. We don't know whether Mike found it in the July 1961 issue of Romp or whether he obtained the second reprint (i.e. third printed version) sometime in the late 60's.

Scanned and posted by the Web-Ed on 10/05/2012 (click to double-size).

10/05/2012 Update: We had thought the July 1961 Romp to have been this cartoon's first appearance until very recently, when we unexpectedly ran across it in the Sept. 1956 issue of Comedy. This scan doesn't really add anything new except the one word "And" to the beginning of the caption, but it does mean we have to move back the date when Humorama began reprinting its "spankers" even earlier than we had previously thought (1963); we now believe that its reprint era began in 1961.

From the October 1979 issue of Popular Cartoons. Scanned and posted by the Web-Ed on 01/29/2021 (click to double-size).

01/29/2021 Update: This is either the fourth or fifth printing of the cartoon - we still don't know which. The caption has been altered and again we don't know when, although we suspect it was probably around 1971-72. By October 1979 when this version appeared in Popular Cartoons, Humorama was reprinting whole pages from the full-size magazines of seven or eight years earlier (sometimes with small alterations like photographs of different models), presumably to save money. (Why they didn't save even more by reprinting the photos also is not known since they certainly reprinted some 1950s photos well into the 60s. We know that Humorama obtained their photos from another company or companies and that there were no reprint rights to those photos, but we're not sure that would have stopped them.)

Colorist unknown; new caption by Bawdy Bard. Posted by the Web-Ed on 01/29/2021.

Next we come to a version with a very strange pedigree. It is the third and last of the cartoons found by Bawdy Bard on a now-defunct website, colored but with the captions removed. (The other two are Dan DeCarlo's spanked jaywalker in Humorama #88 and Ward Warming Buns). Having no idea why anyone would do such a thing to a humor cartoon, and probably not having this page in hand, BB did the best he could to come up with an appropriate gag. Attaching a double-meaning to the word "Pow-wow" isn't bad, especially considering the constraint of not having come up with the situation.

Who removed the caption, bared the spankee's bottom and colored this cartoon? Baring the bottom and coloring B & W art is something Funbun has done for a long time, but he's a much more careful artist and this certainly isn't his work (nor were the other two examples linked to above). We suppose we'll never know and it will have to remain another of those pleasant spanking mysteries.

Finally, let's look at Doctor Cylon's embellishments to this fine, politically incorrect cartoon. "More fun spankum on bare" is apparently the philosophy shared by the good doctor and our spanker here (as well as ourselves!), for he bares the spankee's bottom and adds some adroit coloring. This is worth pointing out, for coloring a black & white inkwash drawing isn't easy and many colorists would obliterate some of its subtle shadings.

First alteration by Doctor Cylon. Posted by the Web-Ed on 01/29/2021 (click to double-size).

Finished, colorized version by Doctor Cylon. Posted by the Web-Ed on 01/29/2021 (click to double-size).