Humorama Spanking Cartoons

[web-ed]

I'm familiar with comicartfans.com and probably should have tried to research Bill Wenzel more thoroughly before posting the "Junior" cartoon. In fact, the first non-spanking Wenzel cartoon I found (not on comicartfans.com, as it happens) would have settled the issue had I looked for it earlier, because it had both the signature and the characteristic continuous arc forming half the female face (I will trace this out to make clear what I mean when I post the next Wenzel page). Anyway, thanks, DRD, for helping out, and Jim, for your thoughts on the subject.

By the way, collections of the cartoons of Bill Wenzel, Dan DeCarlo, and some others are available from the Eros imprint of Fantagraphics Books. They contain a few "spankers", but nothing you won't find in my Humorama Series here at CSR.

[Wolfie138]

lovely Ward pic up. Outta my price range but y'all might wanna snag a copy of the pic for your collections, there's a cracking scan of it if you click the Enlarge option. (that's the one under the pic halfway down teh page, not the one in the thumbnail up top)
http://cgi.ebay.com/BILL-WARD-SPANKING- ... 48392d4791

[Subject line edited by Web-Ed, and moved from Comic-Book and Superhero Spanking Forum]

[web-ed]

Thanks for providing this link, Wolfie. I found this some time ago and have it in my files waiting for my "Ward" series. I actually had a printed copy years ago, but I don't have it any more. The caption was something like, "But why shouldn't freshmen date seniors?"

By the way, I think the seller is dreaming if he really thinks he's going to get two grand for this, even if it is a Bill Ward original. Yes, there are a lot of wealthy people who have money to burn, but I would hope they don't like overpaying for something any more than the rest of us do. And there is a recession on....

[DRD]

Pretty good memory Web-ed,I have this one as well, 2 captions on bottom of page read,"Don't you know, freshmen don't date seniors!" -crossed out- & "How many times must I tell you, freshmen don't date seniors!"

DRD

[DRD]

Herc's full name was Jack Howells (Herc) Ficklen. Born,lived ,with exception of hitch in army during WW2, and died in Texas. Primarily was editorial and political cartoonist for the Dallas Morning News. but obviously did some Humorama stuff as well.
DRD

[web-ed]

Thanks as always, DRD! I have recently found some info on Homer, but had come up empty on Herc.

[DRD]

Being more of a fan of the humorama artists.I started trying to find out the names of these guys about 6mos. ago. Decarlo I already knew about having read the Archie comics since I was a kid. But the rest I only knew their illustrations and single name signatures. So it was a little challenging. Through trial and error I was able to find info on google searches. Herc was a freak accident found on a totally unrelated search. Working on R E right now with the name Engel as Jim seemed to recall, but drawing a blank so far. found some of his cartoons from that genre, but alas, no name yet.
DRD

[DRD]

I may have an ID on R E. I would like your opinion. Go to "comics.ha.com" Type in Abe Goodman in the search bar. You should get a single cartoon with a REKOJ signature. I compared the cartoon with the RE's that I have and they look like they were drawn by the same person. Also the R's are are almost the same. The RE may be a shortened version of REKOJ, which if you reverse the letters is JOKER, one of the digests published by Humorama run by Abe Goodman for his brother Martin who you probably already know started Marvel Comics. I am making a guess that "RE" may be Abe. What do you think? Also comics.ha.com is where I got Herc's last name and there is a Herc cartoon there you might want for personal collection.
DRD

[jimc]

Great finds DRD. I liked the ones in Humorama, Joker, Jest, Romp and also discovered another series called Sex To Sexty. It had several spanking scenes and was neat to try to figure who the artists were out there. Kimbrell seemed to have a lot and there was another artist that was featured in MR magazine as well that was spanking related. Alas these were really old magazines and finding out anything about them may be difficult.
Jim

[jimc]

Yeah i wonder if the guy who posts these on ebay really expects people to pay that much for those spanking scenes or does he put such high prices that no one will buy them, but they can be posted and scanned and by having such a high price maybe ebay would turn its head about it being posted. Or i really think that he just somehow had to put the wrong price on them and does not want to take the time to remove them and put them up at the correct price.
Jim

[DRD]

I'm wondering if this is the same guy that bought it from comics.ha,com and payed $1500 for
DRD

[DRD]

Thanks Jim, by the way, there are a couple of Wards,a George Morrice and, as I said, a Herc Ficklin at comics.ha that you guys may or may not already have

[web-ed]

Could well be. By the way, I'm going to post this one along with 9 others by Ward on July 2, as sort of an Independence Day celebration. I'm calling it the Bill Ward Blowout!

[web-ed]

Thanks for doing all that spadework, DRD! I took a look at the cartoon you mentioned and compared it with a couple in my files that I haven't yet posted. I agree with most of your conclusions - "REKOJ" is "JOKER", and the cartoons do seem to have been drawn by the same man, but it wasn't Abe Goodman. A brief digression for those who aren't sure who the Goodman brothers were: as DRD notes, Martin Goodman published the Humorama digests as well as comic books under the Atlas/Timely/Marvel imprint. (Goodman set up numerous corporations for his business, and he could use any of their names at will). His brother Abe edited the Humorama line (he may have had an assistant, but if so, I don't know who it was).

I'm convinced that "REKOJ" is really Frank Beaven. The big clue is the address stamp in the "REKOJ" cartoon, the visible portion of which reads, "K BEAVEN" (in lower r.h. corner). We were lucky to get this, because with most of the Humorama cartoons I've seen, the stamp was on the back (presumably the artists did this so that Abe Goodman would know where to send the check!). It's reasonable to suppose that the only Humorama artist whose first name ends in "K" and whose last name is "Beaven" is Frank Beaven. Let's take a look at three cartoons and try to confirm:

This is the REKOJ cartoon DRD is referring to.

rekoj_bb.jpg (64.3 KiB) Viewed 11050 times

An "RE" spanking cartoon.

tuesday_bb.jpg (61.82 KiB) Viewed 11050 times

Non-spanking cartoon known to be drawn by Frank Beaven.

frank_beaven_fun_parade80_bb.jpg (79.03 KiB) Viewed 11050 times

There are several stylistic similarities, especially the noses - the men generally have protuberant ones of an unusual shape, and the women's all end in a sharp point. I'd say they're all Beaven, and the only real question is why he used so many different signatures. We have seen that Bill Wenzel used two different forms; Beaven seems to have used at least three (I've seen a block-style "F" on some of his work) and maybe more, if he's also the mysterious "F Engel". The "RE" is especially strange - not his initials, but the second letter of each of his names!

But I wouldn't have tumbled to all this if you hadn't found the "REKOJ" one, so thanks again. I may have to revise the page with our only Beaven cartoon so far, and I'm certainly going to post the few others I have, probably repeating much of this discussion.

And by the way, I looked up the other cartoons you mentioned, having previously searched through other art auction sites. At this point, I expect that's where we're going to find any Humorama spanking cartoons that haven't been seen on the 'net before. Makes me wish I could have picked them all up back in the 80's when Humorama's assets were auctioned off.

[DRD]

Thanks for pointing out the stamp, didn't even see it. I heartily concur with your opinion that it is Frank Beaven. I bow to you on this one.
DRD

[jimc]

great finds and great detective work i had always thought those were done by engel as it looked like FE was the initial used. I had always thought that Herc was DSD as the works did seem similar. I appreciate the findsand the research as i did enjoy the art and wish i could know more about the artist (mainly to find if he did other spanking works of course and also i did enjoy finding them) Oh, and i just had an idea for another commision idea for Bawdy Bard and Kevin Karstens a new one involving the strip Luann with Brad and his girlfriend Toni Daytona who are are firemen. Toni is over Brad's knee getting spanked and her comment is something like this " But Brad, Firemen are supposed to put fires out not start them!" 2nd line is something like this "After your bottom is ablaze. I'll hose you down then!".
Jim

[jimc]

hi everyone, i have found another cover spanking it is http://www.adn.es/clipping/ADNIMA20080225_3054/4.jpg. It is a SEX TO SEXTY cover. This was another line of adult-themed comics and it had a lot of the artists we have been discussing in there as well. To our collectors out there i hope you will share some of this artwork as there were some good ones although i have to admit i liked the ones in HUMORAMA better myself. Like web-ed i had a seven spankings and this was one of the 1st that i had found that i could buy as a teenager (i found them at a little newstand across from the college i attended briefly) another was the famous NATIONAL LAMPOON cover; Veronica getting spanked in Archie; Wendy Winkle getting a daydream spanking; Bootsie Belmont getting spanked by Lefty Drake; a ward spanking and a dsd one rounded out my spanking finds that led me to others this was of course way before the internet and i did not know there were more spankos out there. Have a great holiday.
JIm

[jimc]

When i saw the REKOJ I just assumed that it had come from that magazine (Joker) and that was how they gave credit to it when i had seen it years ago so i was surprized that you were able to get that information on an artist from it. I had seen several with the initials FE and somehow i had gotten Frank Engel or engle out of it as it was in a magazine called fetish times about some of the spanking artists of the time. I found out information about this in a newspaper called the village voice. I seem to recall another fetish paper out there published by someone either named martin goldstein or something like that i wonder if anyone remembers anything about them. this was after playboy and penthouse, but before hustler i think. Another spanking magazine of the time was called OUI and it had many spanking letters, stories, and art that i have not seen in awhile. SIR was a sister publication of MR and it also was a mainstream spanking magazine.
JIm

[web-ed]

Good find on Sex to Sexty - I don't have any of these in my personal collection, but of course I'll post this one.

I remember various fetish papers, mainly in the 80's and 90's, some of which had spanking pictures and Bill Ward cartoons. I didn't keep any of them, however. Oui I never liked much, so probably the one or two issues I saw didn't have any spanking in them. I remember seeing SIR on a magazine rack somewhere, but I never owned a copy.

[jimc]

Yes, OUI was really not that good, but the issues that had spanking in them were great (there was a photo spread of Hitler spanking Eva Braun and a shoot with a western spanking theme and a parody on the spy that loved me called the spy that spanked me and 1 other i remember), but as you said i stopped buying it after a couple of issues did not have any spanking in it. There was this newsletter out for a while too called the bottom line anybody remember that one.
Jim