Spanking in comics 1938-1970
The so-called "golden age of spanking" coincided closely with the rise of comics as a mass industry, signaled by the debut of Action Comics number one in June, 1938. By the end of the thirties, spanking was a well established tradition within the comics milieau, featuring clearly defined visual and narrative conventions. Historically, spanking imagery had appeared in a wide range of comic strip genres: mischievous boys (Buster); Angels & Orphans (Annie); Naughty Little Girls (Iodine); Domestic Comedy (Blondie) Daredevil Adventurers (Jungle Jim), and even Costumed Heroes (The Phantom).
When comic books began flooding the newstands in the early forties, spanking was featured in an equally wide variety of genres: Superhero, Western, Funny Animal, Sci-fi and teenaged humor; followed later in the decade by Jungle-Girl, Crime and Romance comics. The fact that spanking appeared as a plot device in titles as diverse as Candy and The Boy Commandos is a testement to how commonly accepted the image had become by the 1940s.
Generally speaking, spanking in comic books followed the principles established in comic strips of the previous decades. Spanking scenarios were almost exclusively confined to Generational Conflict (child vs adult) and Gendered confrontation (woman vs man). Gendered Confrontation was uniformly heterosexual with the male dominant, while generational imagery could employ more complex arrangements (M/f, M/m, F/f, F/m, m/f, f/f). It should be noted, however, that Generational imagery was completely desexualized in favor of slapstick humor or domestic comedy. By contrast, Gendered sequences were more often used to establish romanticised relationships between male and female characters and to establish sexual norms applicable to the period.
Dell Publications
As previously mentioned, the inception of a mass-produced comics industry in the late 30s led to a proliferation of titles and genres: consequently, the form and variety of spanking images increased by sheer weight of numbers. Significantly, the highest circulation figures were maintained by Dell Publications, whose primary output included Disney characters and various child-friendly strips (including comic book versions of Lulu and Iodine). As the target demographic was (for the most part) children below the age of ten, spanking was a familiar sight-gag in many stories, one which the readers could both relate to and laugh at.
It should be noted, however, that funny animals far outnumbered human characters. It was therefore more common to see Donald Duck threatening his nephews with a whuppin' than to see (for instance) Fritzi Ritz taking Nancy over her knee. In a field dominated by "wascally wabbits" and "dwatted ducks", spanking scenarios involving regular children were the exception rather than the rule. On the other hand, corporal scenes usually followed the accepted formulas of Generational Conflict: adults punished children for petty misdemenors, species notwithstanding.
For this reason, infant versions of well-known characters could be created. Mickey, Bugs and Daffy all had younger counterparts who might be subjected to discipline by some pre-existing authority figure. In a flashback scene, Uncle Scrooge catches his young nephew Donald filching a slice of Grandma's apple pie and marches him unceremoniously to the woodshed; alternately, a juvenile Porky Pig plays hooky from Barnyard Elementary and finds himself on the run from a switch-wielding truant officer. Similar plotlines were played out over a range of titles with the emphasis on M/B scenarios. As with the newspaper strips of the 20s and 30s, the comics landscape was littered with ostensibly male protagonists; female talking animals were usually relegated to supporting roles (and were subsequently punished less frequently).
Superheroes
The early forties also saw the emergence of the American superhero as a specific comics genre. While the first actual superhero - Siegle and Shuster's Superman - first appeared in 1938 (Action Comics, DC), similar characterizations could be traced back to Lee Falk's The Phantom, Lester Dent's Doc Savage , Johnston McCulley's Zorro, and even Emmuska Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel. The advent of World War II (and America's subsequent entry into the conflict in 1941) led to a proliferation of costumed superheroes, spurred on to some degree by the patriotic ferver of the times.
Superhero comics seem to have 'inherited' spanking from the adventure strips of the 1930s, particularly Falk's Phantom and Mandrake the Magician. As with the earlier strips, spankings were usually represented as romantic heterosexual scenarios, used to suggest budding relationships or to establish gender archetypes. It virtually goes without saying that early superhero comics followed precisely the same pattern as their news print predecessors - the main difference being that the male characters were subject to a form of hyper-masculinization, as typified by Siegle and Shuster's Superman.
Social Barometers
Superman serves as an interesting barometer of social acceptability in male/female relationships. The first issue of Action Comics has Superman confronting a strap-weilding wife beater, throwing him across the room with the words "You're not fighting a woman now!" (image). The thug then faints in terror when Superman tells him "you're going to get a lesson you'll never forget" (image).
The underlying message is self-evident: domestic violence against women is completely unacceptable; the bullying husband is nothing more than a coward who preys on the weak and helpess. From this perspective, Superman seems completely justified in his rough treatment of the assailant (and the book's young readers doubtlessly agreed with the hero's sentiments).
On the other hand, although wife beating was portrayed as a totally contemptible act, spanking was shown to be not only socially acceptable, but even socially desirable as well. Within a few years, Superman was seen to spank a number of female protagonists, mostly spoiled young socialites who fell in with the wrong crowd. As with the adventure strips of the 30s, the spankings were invariably framed as well-deserved punishment in which Superman assumed an almost paternal role in the relationship: "No doubt you've had this coming for a long time!"
Quite often, the female's inital anger would be replaced with reluctant admiration: "Oh how I hate him! ... But just the same, I've got to admit he's quite a man! Too bad he and I are foes ... I could go for him in a big way!" Again, the scenario is structured to reinforce the existing stereotypes of the time; ie, that all women secretly desire a physically and emotionally powerful man to control their behavior.
At the same time, the male was prohibited from using excess force - any man who would use his fists on a woman was an errant coward. Conversely, any man who would apply his palm to her bottom might be viewed as a 'hero' (which lies in stark contrast to modern-day comic imagery, in which M/F spankings are rare, but M/F fist-fights extremely commonplace).
Spanking By Proxy
As the 40s wore on and Superman became increasingly more powerful, the likelyhood that he would spank any female character diminished by direct proportion - logically, a being capable of shifting planets with his bare hands could never hit a human woman for fear of killing her. As a result, it was left up to male supporting characters to intervene on behalf of the hero (a form of 'spanking by proxy'), often righting wrongs committed against Superman himself. In this instance, the Man of Steel was recast as a metaphoric authority figure through which patriarchal approval is handed down.
A common theme of this period (pioneered by Falk in The Phantom) was the Powerful Woman humbled by the Ordinary Man. The Queen Arda storyline from the Superman news strip exemplifies the archetype perfectly. In common with many of her stock predecessors, Arda is a petty, spoilt despot who uses her power and influence to rook the Last Son of Krypton into a sham marriage. Desiring only a 'trophy husband' to complete her royal collection, she never realises that her perfect match is close at hand in the form of her court adviser, Evad. It takes a good, hard spanking over Evad's knee to bring the young Queen to her senses and admit that she may have overlooked his 'obvious qualities'.
While furious at the indignity, Arda almost immediately begins to reconsider Evad's eligability: "I'll have your head for this! ... And yet, you are strong and masterful, Evad ... and even a little handsome. I - I may yet allow you to marry me...". The fact that Evad was willing to risk execution proved his worthiness as a royal consort. Superman himself took a passive role throughout proceedings, despite the fact that Arda's crimes were actually committed against him. In this context, the Man of Steel may be seen as giving his godlike approval to a budding romance. One possible reading of the subtext suggests that spanking was a 'divinely sanctioned' responsibility, a solemn duty every man must perform in the role of parent, husband or lover.
Being the first of his kind, Superman served as a template for many superheroes of the 1940s and successive decades; in much the same way, superhero spanking scenarios were patterned after those presented in Superman. For this reason, direct M/F spanking was carried out by non-super powered heroes (including Bob Kane's The Batman, Will Eisner's The Spirit and so on), while the more powerful characters were often restricted to spanking by proxy (proving, perhaps, that it's better to be a 'regular guy' than a superman).
- It is interesting to note that once Superman attained 'omnipotent' status, he rarely if ever spanked a woman, preferring to leave that particular function to less powerful stand-ins - even, on one occasion, allowing one of his robotic duplicates to punish Lois Lane when she attempted to hoodwink him.
Buy Bonds!
America's entry into World War II precipitated a landslide of patriotic themes and characters in the comics industry (although many had been created prior to 1941 - Simon and Kirby's iconic Captain America being a prime example). As noted above, the American Government had realized the propaganda potential of comics and cartoons as early as the First Word War; by 1941 the advent of mass produced comic books provided an exceptional medium for the dissemination of political ideology, in that it was cheap, portable and accessable to readers of all ages.
Somewhat improbably, spanking imagery played a part in wartime propaganda - many comic book covers depicted popular characters (literally) spanking America's wartime enemies. Most of these portrayals were obviously played for laughs - the idea of Uncle Sam taking a squalling, child-like Hitler over his knee was an amusingly reassuring image - and were intended as morale boosters for both the military and civilian populations.
Significantly, this was one of the very few times in which M/M spanking artwork was acceptable to mainstream audiences. Prior to this period, adult spanking sequences were limited primarily to Gendered Confrontation (M/F scenarios). After Pearl Harbor, comics could show Shock Gibson preparing to whale the tar out of a cowering Tojo, or The Blue Beetle dragging a struggling Goebbels out to the woodshed.
The scope could even be broadened to allow for m/M imagery, such as a well-known cover by Mac Raboy depicting Captain Marvel Jr. chasing Hitler and Tojo through the countryside, strap in hand: "CAPTAIN MARVEL JR. belts the TERROR TWINS" (Master Comics no. 29). Quaintly naive by today's standards, sight-gags such as these would have been considered hilarious by contemporary audiences, but also carried a light-hearted message for troops and children alike: even our youngest boys could whip the pants off those Japanazi clowns.
Needless to say, the humorous element was crucial to morale. As the image suggested, in the midst of a national crisis, America could retain both its youthful exhuberance and its sense of optimism. The enemy were not the Master Race they claimed to be; they were just a bunch of doddering old men with delusions of grandeur. On other covers, numerous fascist villians were subjected to similar humiliations: Goering kicked in the rear, Hitler pinned in the backside, Mussolini with a firecracker down his pants. Silly though it seems today, 'ass-whuppin' imagery was a welcome relief from the daily horrors of war, something that everyone could laugh at between casualty reports.
Young Romance
The dominance of superheroes was a relatively short lived affair. After the war came to an end, interest in costumed adventurers began to wane, and publishers started looking around for new material to fill the gap. Dell continued gleaning material from newspaper dailies, Fox exploited the rising popularity of 'True Crime' stories, and Fiction House began pasting good-girls and jungle queens over their covers. DC, Fawcett, Timely and Quality continued marketing superheroes, but also experimented with Westerns, teen comedy and funny animals in their backpages.
Perhaps the most important development (from our perspective) was the debut of Simon and Kirby's Young Romance. Published by Crestwood in 1947, Young Romance is believed to be the first title of its kind aimed specifically at an adolescent female audience.
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