Chicago Spanking Review Special Series

The Humorama Spanking Cartoons!

#86 - Red Light, Red Bottom

Continuing with our Dan DeCarlo mini-series, we have a cartoon whose composition and theme are noticeably similar to Bill Wenzel's Cop Spanking in the Park. We don't know which version came first, however, as we do not have the dates of either the original printing of DeCarlo's cartoon or of any subsequent reprints. What we do know is that even if Wenzel's came first, DeCarlo was as usual up to the task of reworking Wenzel's raw situational material into a form recognizable as uniquely his. [We now know the chronology: Wenzel's cartoon appeared seven months before DeCarlo's. -- Web-Ed, 08/17/2012]

We may surmise that the spankee here is either less innocent than she purports to be or else that she gave the officer some lip when he kindly told her that she didn't belong in a red light district. Either way, we agree with the officer that she had a spanking coming. (Note to younger readers: long ago, ladies of the evening used to literally hang a red light outside to advertise their services, hence the term "red light district" to refer to any region of a modern municipality where prostitution and perhaps other sex-related businesses may be found. How do we know so much about this, you ask? We, ah, read about it in a book many years ago while we were doing, er, scholarly research.) DeCarlo may also have intended a double-meaning: our naughty young miss will soon be sporting twin "red lights" where she sits down!

Panties removed by person unknown. Posted by the Web-Ed on 04/27/2012.

Panties in place, original source unknown.

Again we see DeCarlo's consistency: good gag, deft caricatures, and OTK positioning that while not realistic in the sense that the spankee appears to be strangely weightless does bend her over sufficiently to present her bottom in an attractive manner.

The original version from the April 1957 issue of Joker. Posted by the Web-Ed on 08/17/2012 (click to double-size).

08/17/2012 Update: We now know this cartoon first appeared in Joker (April 1957) with a slightly different caption that was almost certainly written by Abe Goodman. The reference to the nightstick is interesting since in Wenzel's earlier piece (link above), the nightstick he innocently drew, not realizing it was too severe a spanking implement, was removed by Goodman and only appeared years later when the cartoon was reprinted.

We can now also see that the version at left above reversed the original image, something we could have deduced because, as Dan Rivera recently pointed out, a police officer's badge is worn on the left side of his uniform. (Under the same topic, Dan also brought up the question of why there are so many cartoons in which the spanker is spanking with his left-hand).