Missed Opportunities - Prize Comics
Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 3:10 pm
Prize Comics didn't feature enough spankings (we admit we're a little demanding on that score), so as usual let's bitch and moan by pointing out where they could have done better.
Let's start with Black Magic #38 (May-June 1958), whose antecedents were clearly the Horror/Suspense titles that were so popular in the early 50's. This title appears to have survived the massacre that occurred after the Comics Code was implemented and distributors were failing (c. 1955-56), perhaps because it was less extreme than many other books (even the words "terror" and "horror" were forbidden by the Code, which killed popular EC titles like The Vault of Horror. Nice art by Joe Orlando, who drew no known spankings but did give us Dumb Bunny in some nice spankable poses in early stories of the Inferior Five . (A great pity, since an Orlando spanking would have been a good one!)
"I told you time and time again - stay away from that mirror!" lectures the boyfriend as his girl is getting sucked into what is presumably another dimension. He's losing her (literally), so obviously, he was unfamiliar with the Chicago Spanking Review protocol for hanging on to your girlfriend:
Step 1: explain once to your girlfriend why something is too dangerous for her and she mustn't do it;
Step 2: If she fails to heed your warning, administer a stern lecture on why what she did was wrong (very important), then SPANK HER to drive the point home!
If our young man had only done that, he wouldn't now be watching his girl disappear through some weird portal. Of course, he could have put this dangerous, life-threatening mirror in the attic where no one could get to it, but that's not as good a solution because I can't see how it could have led to a spanking!
Next, let's switch to romance comics, which became enormously popular in the 50's and featured a number of spankings. Here we see a story called "My Sister's Sweetheart" from Young Romance #69. I must admit there's nothing really blatant on this page, but I still think the younger sister, Jill, could have benefited from a little OTK discipline now and then. I wanted to post it because of the obvious boo-boo - Harold, speaking to Jill in panel 2, addresses her as "Sue" (her older sister's name) by mistake! Also, this artwork reminds me very much of John Romita Sr. who of course later found fame as Marvel's Art Director and as the artist who took over The Amazing Spider-Man after Steve Ditko left the strip.
Could it be Romita? He had been happy at Atlas (Marvel), but by 1954 Atlas was hanging on by a thread and it was around this time that he was forced to switch over to DC where he spent years doing romance comics (which he hated, by the way). It seems quite possible, then, that Romita found some work at Prize Comics (possibly through Joe Simon and Jack Kirby) just before, during, or even after he transitioned over to DC. I've spent this much time on the question because I like Romita's art very much, and think he's somewhat underrated by comics critics.
In any case, the next issue of Young Romance did have a M/F spanking, although not a very good one, and it will be added to Comics Gallery 2 in due course.
Now let's move on to the Crime genre, so loathed by Fredric Wertham (to him, everything was a "crime comic"). Artistically, I don't care for the genre either, because it's emotionally tiring to spend so much time around utterly worthless characters. This may be why I never liked television crime shows like The Untouchables or more recently, The Sopranos either. Unlike Wertham, however, I don't believe that they corrupted America's youth - my big complaint is that despite their popularity (before being wiped out by the Comics Code), they had zero (known) spankings! [No longer true - I found one after this was posted.] And there was no excuse for this, because they featured plenty of bad girls who needed some strict punishment. Here's an example, from Headline Comics #26: Bad girls who stick guns in people's ribs (and smoke cigarettes, too - tsk, tsk!) deserve a sound spanking!
Up to now, I may have been stretching the definition of "missed opportunities" just a little, if by that we mean situations where obviously spanking was the only way to go and yet the story followed a different path. But this time, spanking really was the only way to go! Once again, we have that old staple, the arrogant queen (who in this case has even usurped the throne). Yet when confronted by our hero, all he does is grab her and hold her in a pose which immediately suggest the OTK position! Yes, they really missed the boat here in Price Comics #3 (May 1940): O.K., I've complained enough for one day. Until next time...
Let's start with Black Magic #38 (May-June 1958), whose antecedents were clearly the Horror/Suspense titles that were so popular in the early 50's. This title appears to have survived the massacre that occurred after the Comics Code was implemented and distributors were failing (c. 1955-56), perhaps because it was less extreme than many other books (even the words "terror" and "horror" were forbidden by the Code, which killed popular EC titles like The Vault of Horror. Nice art by Joe Orlando, who drew no known spankings but did give us Dumb Bunny in some nice spankable poses in early stories of the Inferior Five . (A great pity, since an Orlando spanking would have been a good one!)
"I told you time and time again - stay away from that mirror!" lectures the boyfriend as his girl is getting sucked into what is presumably another dimension. He's losing her (literally), so obviously, he was unfamiliar with the Chicago Spanking Review protocol for hanging on to your girlfriend:
Step 1: explain once to your girlfriend why something is too dangerous for her and she mustn't do it;
Step 2: If she fails to heed your warning, administer a stern lecture on why what she did was wrong (very important), then SPANK HER to drive the point home!
If our young man had only done that, he wouldn't now be watching his girl disappear through some weird portal. Of course, he could have put this dangerous, life-threatening mirror in the attic where no one could get to it, but that's not as good a solution because I can't see how it could have led to a spanking!
Next, let's switch to romance comics, which became enormously popular in the 50's and featured a number of spankings. Here we see a story called "My Sister's Sweetheart" from Young Romance #69. I must admit there's nothing really blatant on this page, but I still think the younger sister, Jill, could have benefited from a little OTK discipline now and then. I wanted to post it because of the obvious boo-boo - Harold, speaking to Jill in panel 2, addresses her as "Sue" (her older sister's name) by mistake! Also, this artwork reminds me very much of John Romita Sr. who of course later found fame as Marvel's Art Director and as the artist who took over The Amazing Spider-Man after Steve Ditko left the strip.
Could it be Romita? He had been happy at Atlas (Marvel), but by 1954 Atlas was hanging on by a thread and it was around this time that he was forced to switch over to DC where he spent years doing romance comics (which he hated, by the way). It seems quite possible, then, that Romita found some work at Prize Comics (possibly through Joe Simon and Jack Kirby) just before, during, or even after he transitioned over to DC. I've spent this much time on the question because I like Romita's art very much, and think he's somewhat underrated by comics critics.
In any case, the next issue of Young Romance did have a M/F spanking, although not a very good one, and it will be added to Comics Gallery 2 in due course.
Now let's move on to the Crime genre, so loathed by Fredric Wertham (to him, everything was a "crime comic"). Artistically, I don't care for the genre either, because it's emotionally tiring to spend so much time around utterly worthless characters. This may be why I never liked television crime shows like The Untouchables or more recently, The Sopranos either. Unlike Wertham, however, I don't believe that they corrupted America's youth - my big complaint is that despite their popularity (before being wiped out by the Comics Code), they had zero (known) spankings! [No longer true - I found one after this was posted.] And there was no excuse for this, because they featured plenty of bad girls who needed some strict punishment. Here's an example, from Headline Comics #26: Bad girls who stick guns in people's ribs (and smoke cigarettes, too - tsk, tsk!) deserve a sound spanking!
Up to now, I may have been stretching the definition of "missed opportunities" just a little, if by that we mean situations where obviously spanking was the only way to go and yet the story followed a different path. But this time, spanking really was the only way to go! Once again, we have that old staple, the arrogant queen (who in this case has even usurped the throne). Yet when confronted by our hero, all he does is grab her and hold her in a pose which immediately suggest the OTK position! Yes, they really missed the boat here in Price Comics #3 (May 1940): O.K., I've complained enough for one day. Until next time...