Chicago Spanking Review Special Series

The Humorama Spanking Cartoons!

#176 - Hill Spanking #1

Here is another cartoon from Dan DeCarlo, showing how a spanking was done back in the hill country. The young man leaning against the tree and the girl getting spanked by her Pa are plainly modeled on Li'l Abner Yokum and Daisy Mae Scragg from the very popular (at the time this cartoon was drawn) Li'l Abner newspaper comic strip. This cartoon has been retouched by an unknown artist to bare the girl's bottom - although we could not find a copy of it, we remember seeing the original years ago, and as good as it was, the spanking was not on the bare, in keeping with the editorial standards of the day. This cartoon is known to have appeared in the July 1961 issue of Romp, which was probably its first printing. As was usual for DeCarlo, the OTK positioning is nicely done.

Interestingly, the humor here derives from the girl's desire to be spanked by a handsome young man in whom she obviously has a romantic interest. This theme is also touched upon in some of the other cartoons on display in the Humor section, notably the "be careful with that ash" and "spanking marriage counselor", both by Kirk Stiles.

02/19/2010 Update: JimC let us know that, just as in the case of Batman, the unknown artist we referred to here is actually Funbun. Now, Funbun usually does his own original work, but is sometimes motivated to alter that of other artists, most commonly by baring and rounding the bottom, thus giving the spanker a better target. He certainly succeeded admirably in this case! Funbun's work has appeared in many places, but you can find the largest concentration here.

Update continued: here is the original version, with "Daisy's" skirt back in place as standards required back in the 50's. Also, the caption is slightly different (but the meaning is the same) and DeCarlo's signature (DSD) restored. Since we're big believers in spanking on the bare, we find Funbun's altered version quite a bit sexier, and would like to think that DeCarlo himself would have approved had he lived long enough to see it. After all, artists like DeCarlo, Homer, Stiles, and others of the period drew their spankees as sexily as they could, usually raising the skirt, and if they could have taken the next logical step (panties down), we believe they would have.

Originally published in 1944, probably during late summer or early fall. From our personal collection, added 03/22/2008. © Capp Enterprises, Inc.

As we mentioned, the boy and girl in the cartoon above were modeled on characters from Li'l Abner, which in its prime (1940's and 50's, in our opinion) was certainly one of the finest comic strips ever produced. Al Capp, its creator, was not only a good artist but a gifted humorist as well. The strip featured both broad humor and biting satire, and contributed a great deal to the popular culture of the day. Even now, people who are too young to remember the strip itself may have heard references to "the shmoo", "Lower Slobbovia", or "Sadie Hawkins Day" - all of which were dreamed up by Capp for Li'l Abner.

Spankings occurred many times in the strip. Daisy Mae was spanked at least twice by Lil' Abner, and she also wound up over the knee of other characters from time to time. Despite this, we see no internal evidence that Capp was into spanking, nor have we seen any research (or even heard any gossip - and we listen!) that would suggest such tendencies either. Spanking was very common in American society until quite recently, and as we have remarked elsewhere in these pages, works of popular art would naturally be expected to reflect that. Capp was a master at suggestiveness and sexy exaggeration, so had he intended the spankings to be presented in an erotic manner, either for popular consumption or personal satisfaction, he could certainly have depicted them that way. 04/22/2011 Update: some altered versions may be found here.

Boom came up with this excellent scan (posted on the Spanking In Media Forum). As he put it, "Decarlo's shading makes her butt look three-dimensional!" And as we added, "For the first time, we can see that DeCarlo intended the buttocks to provide a really well-defined, tempting target."

To us, well-defined buttocks make a spanking cartoon or drawing all the more sexy (you might say we're from the Funbun school on this), so this find is a very welcome one indeed. It makes us wonder if DeCarlo's other work would show this same concern if good scans of it were available.

January 2011 Updates: Right after Boom posted his scan, we came into possession of another good copy from Mike's collection, taken from original Humorama sources in the 1960's, and promptly scanned it. It is comparable in quality to Boom's so we can appreciate the details DeCarlo put into it, plus it has the original caption.

We also found a colorized version which we like very much that we now know was done years ago by b00m. It was an "orphaned" attachment we found in the Forum's data base (this means it was uploaded with the intention of attaching it to a post, but it was never attached). The color is well-done, adding an extra dimension, and we generally much prefer color to black & white. One unusual color choice was giving the spankee red hair since she was modeled after Daisy Mae, who of course is blonde. b00m had a good reason for doing this - he likes redheads!

From Mike's collection, now safely in the hands of the Web-Ed.

Colorized version by b00m.