Threats and Missed Opportunities

[Sweetspot]

Many spanking-in-sequential-art-enthusiasts have a fond memory of an image that they recall from a by-gone year perhaps even dating back to their own youth. This might be a spanking from Abbie an' Slats, Lancelot perhaps the Jackson Twins. I have a long held fond recollection of an "off-stage" spanking found in a May 1971 Prince Valiant strip. Unfortunately, like the problem so many of us share, that strip was lost to me for decades. Recently however, following my purchase of a new newspaper archive and an extensive search, I was able to rediscover this important to me episode.

Maurice Horn writes, "Carefully plotted and laid out far ahead of time, the scenario of Prince Valiant is not a collection of unrelated episodes arbitrarily woven around the central character, but an organic whole reflecting the vicissitudes and joys of the hero's life as well as the (legendary) times and society around him. The action however, moves slowly, due partly to Foster's rather weighty text, partly to the static composition of his pictures."
Since Hal Foster relinquished the drawing of the page to John Cullen Murphy at some point in 1971 I can't be sure of the artist of this particular story. In this adventure Valiant, his son Arn and new friend Ben Zirara are headed to the Misty Isles for a reunion with Queen Aleta and further opportunity for adventure.
It's typical of the Valiant story that the main quest is interrupted by a small incident, sometimes for purpose of advancing a character's development or for comic relief. Here a domestic situation unfolds right in front of them as they are on the road. Zirara's resolve as the protector of all womanhood is put to the test.

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The traveling lady has left her long-suffering husband, perhaps she is going home to mother! Her escort is a young man who obviously has an infatuation for his traveling companion. When the irate husband catches up to the pair the young escort climbs a tree to avoid conflict.

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[Sweetspot]

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[Sweetspot]

PrinceValiantSt.LouisPostDispatchMay2,71Tears.jpg (97.79 KiB) Viewed 8226 times

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Not a bad set of drawings and remarkably close to how I remember the scene from over 45 years ago.

[web-ed]

Great one, Phil - and with a switch, too! It's obvious Hal Foster believed it appropriate to spank a misbehaving wife, and the spanked women characters in Prince Valiant, including the wife here, all seem fine with it. I don't think anyone in the spanko community has ever mentioned this one before. Too bad the actual switching takes place off-panel, but perhaps it was on the bare so Foster couldn't show it .

There are at least a couple of other spankings in the strip I can think of, but they're of juveniles. I wonder if there were any more spankings of adult women

[web-ed]

This week's update is the first of two spankings Phil S. discovered in Polly and Her Pals. As is discussed on that page, Polly spawned some imitators including the one that concerns us here, Freckles and His Friends. Phil S. has found one missed opportunity and one actual spanking that unfortunately takes place off-panel, so let's take a look at them now.

In the first, Freckles' best friend Lard (what a name!) has no money to buy a present for his girlfriend Hilda, so Hector (whom I think is Hilda's little brother) cooks up a scheme to get her to bend over (smart lad ). Too bad the scheme didn't involve a nice paddle instead of Lard's boot, for Hilda, rather intriguingly, doesn't mind getting kicked and so would probably have been delighted to receive swats on her fanny with a paddle. This is a true "missed opportunity".


It's the old "bend over, get a swat" gag, on Dec. 10, 1942. © NEA Services

Even better, Hilda got an actual spanking from her father of the "you're not too big to take over my knee" variety a little more than a year later in between Feb. 23-24, 1944.


© NEA Services

Interestingly, Hilda discusses her embarrassment at being spanked with her girlfriends in a scene which reminds me very much of a Phil Overbarrel strip:

Written and drawn by Merrill Blosser. Scans by Phil Sweetspot, edited by Web-Ed. © NEA Services

This time, a paddle is used, but it's an improvised one in the form of one of Hal Krooner's (evidently a teeny-bopper idol) albums. Blosser makes a joke that may need some explanation: the name of the album is "Beat me, Daddy". The spanking reference is obvious, but what is the non-spanking meaning of the phrase? The answer is that it refers in the vernacular of the era to the eight-to-a-bar boogie-woogie rhythm, a style that was popular at the time (although Fats Waller hated it, and so do I).

I actually transcribed one of Fats's piano solos (by listening to a CD - and at normal speed!) that used boogie-woogie for a few bars (this must have been a concession by Fats to the tastes of the period), but it would be kind of a pain to present that excerpt here. If there's anyone out there who plays the piano reasonably well and who's curious, I might be able to send the transcription to you - just drop me a line and then wait a few months for a response...

[butch46163@yahoo.com]

Thanks for the info SweetSpot about the song Beat Me Daddy He really played a swinging tune on her bottom too bad we couldn`t see it kinda young women of that time was to hear about girls their age still being spanked didn`t they know women was also spanked in that time Great comic!

[Tanner]

The Jackson Twins.Does that ever bring back fond memories of reading that comic strip in the old Washington Star newspaper(which also carried Oakey Doaks), And agree that they were quite in need of spankings!
Like to make a comment on the subject of girls wearing shorts in public in 1954. While true is was mostly accepted, there were still many more conservative parts of the country, especially rural and small towns, where it was not approved. And likewise many older people and families strict about modesty of dress for females. Some young ladies who wore shorts back then, especially short ones, may well have had to undergo spankings, or what some would doubtless have deemed "a punishment fitting the crime" , having a switch applied to their bare legs, leaving stripes that would force them to cover up out of shame.
Spanking for improper or immodest attire is a not uncommon theme in spanking literature. Recall some letters to Mr magazine that had girls in mini-skirts getting spanked. And one letter from a husband who spanked his wife for wearing hotpants in public when that fashion rage hit. Of course we know those letters were written by the magazine staff, at least mostly!
More recently it has been the thong. Whether underwear or swimsuits. Spankings for wearing lowrise pants with thong showing. Sadly, that fashion has vanished. Some thought it tacky or something, but it was so much fun seeing girls with exposed thongs and imagining them getting spanked. And there were the fat ones showing their thongs and you had to ask what were they thinking. They truly needed to be paddled just so that would wear something to cover all that red skin!

[web-ed]

Glad to have your comments on these matters, Tanner!

[Sweetspot]

Thanks Web-Ed for the information concerning Hilda's favorite Hal Krooner recording 'Beat Me, Daddy!' The optimist in me likes to think that the reason these spankings are off 'stage' instead of shown in the strip is because the spanker has bared the woman's bottom. That had a high-probability of being the case in the Prince Valiant switching [heck of a big switch isn't it?] posted above. In Hilda's case since her coat needed to come off [or lifted up] anyway perhaps the spanker lifted her dress in order to give her the promised one-handed applauds! The plus-side of any off-panel spanking is that you can let the imagination run free. At least while she's on the floor recovering from being booted in the behind we get an idea of what she might look like across a guy's lap.

Over the last couple of days I've been wracking the old brain trying to remember the other Freckles and His Friends missed opportunity we had in our files -that I recall - and thought I had sent to you. I came across the panels I had in mind while perusing through my "file" this evening. Anyway from August 10, 18 and 19 of 1950:

A quick look at Sheila going all-out brat! She's freeloading off of Freckles because her rich daddy has temporarily cut off some of her funds and anyway she gets a kick out of making other people pay for her extravagances.

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FrecklesAndHisFriendsAugust18,1950.jpg (36.56 KiB) Viewed 8169 times

Turns out that instead of having Freckles "on his knees" she ends up Over The Knee

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[overbarrel49]

Hi Phil,

I have to tell you that in the case of Sheila, I sure would like to have seen the spanking scene. In fact, I think the writer owed that to his viewing audience . Anyway, it's a good story with the proper ending, even if we didn't get to see the spanking. Thanks, Phil O

[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.

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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 7474 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.

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HookSliderDecember9,1954.jpg (39.71 KiB) Viewed 7474 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