Threats and Missed Opportunities

[web-ed]

Thanks for picking up the slack there, Phil. Yes, you did send these to me, but I somehow filed them in a "general" folder and put the other two under "Missed Opportunities". I think this came about because in the beginning I had no idea how much material you'd unearthed, and started to put it in a generic folder before realizing that each comic strip needed its own. I'm going to recheck the files now to try to avoid leaving something out this way again.

As to the scene itself, I have to agree with Phil O. This has to be one of the most frustrating missed opportunities of all time, as Sheila is a gorgeous knockout as well as a prize brat and we'd all have loved to see her get it. But we should follow your advice and imagine the scene is off-panel because the spankee is getting her bottom bared. I can even imagine the dialogue in this case quite easily, since it no doubt would parallel what has gone before:

Sheila: But Daddy, you don't believe in spanking on the bare bottom!
Daddy: In this case, I'm willing to make an exception!

[web-ed]

Here's another one of Phil S.'s discoveries: Hook Slider, from almost exactly 62 years ago, Sept. 21, 1955:


© McNaught Syndicate

Off hand, I can't think of another baseball-centered comic strip, although of course there might be one. I don't think I'd care to have to script such a thing - it doesn't seem to have a lot of story potential. There may have been a TV series about a baseball team, but if there was, it didn't last long and probably for that very reason. There was, of course, the musical Damn Yankees, but that owes more to the Faust legend than anything else.

As for Hook Slider itself, I don't think there's much to say - I don't particularly like the title (everyone knows a hook slide is what you use to avoid overrunning a base, right? Your back leg hooks the base), but I can't think of a better one for a baseball strip, either. Maurice Horn doesn't mention it in his Encyclopedia of Comics, nor do any of my other usual sources. Our hero here mentions spanking, but says "I don't know whether to kiss you or spank you!" Any red-blooded male in doubt as to that choice needs educating, but fast ! Besides, you can always kiss her after the spanking.

The artist is Bob Sherry, but I don't know anything about him other than that at least two pages of his original art for this strip have survived. Again, I have a good source listing for thousands of artists, but it doesn't mention this guy. The strip was probably short-lived but might have lasted longer If he'd only drawn the spanking... !

[Sweetspot]

Hook Slider seems to have a starting date of June 7,1954. The strip, as far as I know, couldn't be found in papers before that date [Although it possibly had a trial or pilot-run somewhere before that date]. On June 7, 1954 a retired major league baseball player approaches Hook in the middle of his work day on Cape Cod. Slider is working for his uncle "wressling lobster pots" and seems to be caught off guard when the stranger informs him that he was impressed by Hook's work as a third baseman for the town team last season. I found the strip to be rather choppy from day-to-day with undeveloped plots and characters. Hook Slider seems to be the young mans real name, he introduces himself that way and signs in to training camp with that name. Hook goes from third base to pitcher and then back to being a position player in the course of little over one baseball season.
Hook Slider was sent to the showers for the last time on October 15, 1955 so the run of this series was short indeed. Baseball story lines can be found in other strips (Peanuts, Tank McNamara, Fan Fare, etc.) but Ozark Ike is the only other series I know that centers, more or less, on the national pastime. Usually it's the baseball through the window that gathers our attention at CSR. This is how Susie Q. Smith eventually ended up receiving her only "on-panel" spanking and Doris Day was spanked at the beginning of On Moonlight Bay as the result of an errant ball.
It seems to me that the Louisville Courier-Journal funny-page editor was genuinely feeling bad about losing Hook Slider. It's not surprising that the hometown of the Louisville Slugger bat factory would want a baseball oriented strip in their paper.

HookSliderFinishLouisvilleTheCourier-JournalOctober15,1955.jpg (54.92 KiB) Viewed 7452 times

The spanking mention brought to us above by Web-Ed is followed the next day with this suggestion by the young lady. We, of course, disagree with her assessment of the situation. To quote a young man in another baseball story A League of Their Own "who's to say we can't do both!"

HookSliderSeptember22,1955.jpg (51.99 KiB) Viewed 7452 times

[Sweetspot]

Here's the only other time spanking is mentioned in the comic-strip Hook Slider. Even through the strip had a short-life span and the main character is trying rather desperately to "hook" on with a pro baseball team it seems he still found time for romance and exotic adventure.

HookSliderDecember8,1954.jpg (43.52 KiB) Viewed 7452 times

HookSliderDecember9,1954.jpg (39.71 KiB) Viewed 7452 times

But we never find out what "will work just as well" as Hook turning Diane over his knee and spanking her. Whatever it was seemed to do the trick because Hook and Diane make-up with the proof being lip-stick on Hook's cheek. But it's pleasant to note that Diane was getting spankings, "when she was younger"...like maybe the week before this scene we hope

"Bob Sherry was born in 1920 in the NYC area. He flew for the Navy's Material Air Transport Service (MATS) in WWII. Following the war he worked for King Features in New York City  for many years 
"ghosting" for many artists on comic strips including Red Ryder and  Ozark Ike.

Bob became art director at Link Aviation in Binghamton, NY, in 1962 and worked in that capacity until 1982.
Bob passed away in 1987. This information was provided by Robert Sloan, a friend and colleague of Mr. Sherry at Link Aviation."

[web-ed]

Thanks for the additional information, Phil - it's all very frustrating, though, because Sherry apparently had the idiotic notion that only children should be spanked, whereas the obvious truth is that grown women should be spanked at least until the age of 65 - a different kind of "retirement age" we might say . Diane's dad couldn't have been more wrong about something else working as well as spanking: there's simply no substitute for warming a bad girl's behind and he should have realized that when he needed to spank her in the past. And a few spankings in the strip could only have increased reader interest.

[web-ed]

Two very good M/F spankings are known in Mandrake the Magician: of the Countess Desiree by Mandrake himself and of Diane by her grandfather. (There's also a F/M scene involving a boy that of course will not be posted but that I do need to get into the DB, along with about 100 other such items in my files).

Here we have a threat in the strip from 1945 along with what I would call a missed opportunity:


Mandrake March 30, 1945. Discovered by Chief Strip Researcher Phil S. © King Features Syndicate

Lothar appears to be a circus strongman, well able to give a good spanking as he threatens! And I'd say the Ice Lady could probably use one, also .

By the way, another thing that Phil's researches did was determine the date of that first Mandrake spanking to be 1947, so this is two years earlier, perhaps a trial run of sorts.

[butch46163@yahoo.com]

Don`t think the artist or writers would have let Lothar spanked The Ice Lady but Mandrake should have!! he the hero!

[web-ed]

Back in 2010, I posted a couple of spankings from Mark Trail, the second of which is an excellent romantic scene. It's so good I really have to wonder how Ed Dodd could have blown the excellent opportunity we see below for more OTK action:




Scans by Phil Sweetspot. ©King Features Syndicate

She's already being a brat, and then she slaps him - can there be any doubt about the correct course of action?
I suppose the critical question is which one came first? The spanking is from 1947; if the scene above was from before that time, perhaps Dodd simply hadn't hit his stride yet. But what if the missed opportunity came after 1947? I would have to wonder if the anti-spanking do-gooders like Fredric Wertham, who was beginning his published attacks on what he called "crime comics" in 1947, were having an effect on the strips as well as comic books. For the most part the newspaper strips were spared the opprobrium heaped upon the comic books, and they were not subject to the Comics Code Authority after 1954 as the books were.

Let's hope that some day we find out what year the spanking occurred. It won't solve the mystery, but it might put us on the right track.

[web-ed]

We've seen Rex Morgan issue a spanking threat before - sorry I don't have the link handy - but this is a more interesting one that is among Phil Sweetspot's many recent discoveries:



This is really quite risque for the time (1949) - a suggestion from a woman that she would enjoy being spanked. This goes one step beyond merely being more attracted to a man after he's spanked her, and was not common even among the great Humorama spanking cartoons that were to come in the next decade, where Homer Provence did most of the ones that suggested the spankee might enjoy getting spanked. Perhaps I should write a short article some time on the subject.

Here's the entire strip to give the context:


Rex Morgan, MD. February 2, 1949. Scan by Phil S.; edits by Web-Ed. © Publishers Syndicate

[butch46163@yahoo.com]

Nice Find! he should have gave her the spanking think she wouldn`t like it

[overbarrel49]

Hi web-ed,

I have to agree with Butch here. If she had said that to me, she would have been over my lap with her head and her panties down and her bare bottom up before you could say naughty girl . Phil

[Sweetspot]

Adding to threats and missed opportunities in the newspaper comics that have a hint of erotic overtone.
July 27, 1949. Evidently the idea of being spanked like a 'little girl' doesn't appeal to Franni.

BruceGentryJuly27,1949.jpg (43.45 KiB) Viewed 7553 times

"Spank me all you weesh" Now that's what we like to hear. Unfortunately, as far as I know and I followed the storyline through to the end, Bruce never lights up Franni's fanny (Although I like to think that at some point in their lives he took her up on her generous offer).
July 24, 1949

BruceGentryJuly24,1949PittsburghPost-Gazette.jpg (77.87 KiB) Viewed 7553 times

Bruce Gentry - Ray Bailey, a former assistant to Milton Caniff, created this aviation strip for the Robert Hall Syndicate on March 25, 1945. This was one of a number of aviation strips that sprung up during WWII. The art was uniformly excellent, but on the writing side Bailey couldn't compete with the likes of Crane, Robbin or Caniff. As a general synopsis of the strip we find Gentry starting a small airline in South America, "they ply the Andes" and Bruce soon finds himself, as a flying troubleshooter, always competing against powerful and unethical competitors.

[butch46163@yahoo.com]

Nice Find Bruce ought to be more like Smilin Jack and give the lady the spanking she deserved

[web-ed]

Thanks, Phil - I just didn't have time to add any more of your missed opportunities myself this week. I'll try for next week, but getting Brenda Starr right is the most important item on my agenda.

Caniff's influence on Bailey is pretty evident, but then he influenced a lot of other artists as well.

You really have to love the line, "Afterwards spank me all you weesh!"

[web-ed]

Another good spanking threat discovered by Chief Strip Researcher Phil S. is this one from Rip Kirby:


Rip Kirby, March 3, 1972. Scan by Phil S. edited by Web-Ed. © King Features Syndicate

Rip Kirby was a private eye somewhat in the mold of Kerry Drake, but perhaps a little less physical in his approach to crime-solving. He threatens to get physical with Miss Steele here, though: "I'd love to put you over my knee and wallop you so hard you wouldn't go near a horse for a month!"

The writer, Fred Dickinson, was presumably a non-spanker, for we true spankos know that even a good spanking doesn't leave the poor spankee sore for a month! (It's nice if she can still feel it a little the next day, though. ) Artist John Prentice gives her an interesting expression, suggesting she's a little worried that Rip might just carry out his threat.

[butch46163@yahoo.com]

Nice Find!! sound a little bit like the threat the Phantom made when dealing with The Sky Band only he carried it out THANKS

[Sweetspot]

'He threatens to get physical with Miss Steele here, though: "I'd love to put you over my knee and wallop you so hard you wouldn't go near a horse for a month!" ' - Web Ed

This comment got me wondering what I had on "file" involving horses and spanking:

OffPanelHorseWomanAugust3,1962.jpg (62.69 KiB) Viewed 7498 times

http://www.chicagospankingreview.org/co ... ing_1.html
This is an identical pose but different frame for a, can we say, 'revisioned' look at the Lefty Drake spanks Bootsie Belmont spanking. I place it here because her misbehavior involved abusing her horse.

KerryDrakeNovember28,1970Detail.jpg (64.21 KiB) Viewed 7498 times

Although the young woman's father says his daughter is "too big to spank" he makes her ride in order that the horse can spank her by proxy on his behalf. Perhaps by "too big to spank" he meant that he was unable to handle the girl in a punishment situation for one reason or another so he came up with the horse does the spanking idea.

SusieQSmithMarch20,1947.jpg (75.46 KiB) Viewed 7498 times

[web-ed]

Good horse-related stuff here, Phil - thanks! And you did nail down the year of the Kerry Drake/Bootsie Belmont spanking (1970). Do you have a better scan of the strip from Nov. 23, which I thought (it was hard to read) was the date the spanking took place?

[web-ed]

I'm not going to get into the history of The Gumps, unless Phil S. finds a spanking in it some time in the future, but here's a spanking threat he found already:


The Gumps, December 12, 1933. Scan by Sweetspot; edited by the Web-Ed. © Chicago Tribune Syndicate

[Sweetspot]

I have the publication date of the spanking as November 25, 1970.

KerryDrakeNovember25,1970Detail_LI.jpg (985.56 KiB) Viewed 7475 times

This is a very clear clip from November 26, 1970. I should go back and see if I can get a better clip of the spanking itself.

KerryDrakeNovember26,1970Detail.jpg (67.63 KiB) Viewed 7475 times

Another "guardian" who is grateful that our hero has taken it upon himself to spank their adult female descendant.

KerryDrakeNovember29,1970.jpg (95.85 KiB) Viewed 7475 times