Posted by the Web-Ed on 10/22/2010
Here we have the most remarkable F/M item we have ever run across - in fact, we nearly fell off our chair when we first saw it. We're amazed that a) Kirk Stiles would have drawn it; and b) that Humorama actually printed it. It could be that Stiles simply decided on his own to do a F/M piece one day, and that Abe Goodman (Humorama's editor) then agreed to use it, but we suspect it was the reverse, that Goodman suggested it to Stiles. Why would he do that? Most of Humorama's readers were straight "vanilla" guys who appreciated the occasional M/F "spanker" along with a few true spankos who were desperate for spanking material. Now, men who prefer F/M would have been a small minority of spankos then just as they are now, but a few of them could have written letters to Goodman requesting this type of material. Goodman like most editors would have been eager for any help in determining what the buying public wanted to see, and could have told Stiles (and maybe Ward, but we're less sure in Ward's case) to do a F/M cartoon. All of this, we admit, is pure speculation, but it seems more likely to us than Stiles suddenly becoming a "switchable" cartoonist overnight.
Now let's consider the cartoon itself. It's a very nice ink wash of the type that Stiles (along with Ward and Bill Wenzel) did quite well. It also features a very beautiful girl whom we really wish were on the receiving end of this spanking. Since it takes place in an office setting, Stiles may have intended it as a complete role-reversal of the secretary-spanking cartoons which had become so familiar, and which he himself had produced on occasion.
Goodman's caption is incomprehensible: “Well, one more contest and you get me that 14-karat ring." We know it was Goodman who wrote it because we have blown up and enhanced the printed caption at the bottom of the cartoon. Let's take a closer look:
