Blunder Broad is happy to spank Superchick for reasons unknown (and reasons unimportant). Art by Eric Stanton. Posted by the Web-Ed on 07/21/2023 (click to double-size).
Eric Stanton (1926 –1999) is something of a legend among bondage artists, having been an early pioneer in the field going back to the days of Irving Klaw, but we've never really cared for him all that much. For one thing, his main focus is bondage within the realm of femdom, neither of which is important to us, and for another we don't like his style even though there is some influence of Steve Ditko there, the two men having shared a studio for a while. Still, he did do a number of decent-quality spankings over the years (see Stanton Spanking #1 and Spanking #2 over in the Art Gallery for two M/F examples), and we believe this one, which we found on The Spanking Blog, came from his 1991 comix serial Blunder Broad, an obvious parody of Wonder Woman.
We don't know why Blunder Broad is spanking Superchick (an apparent parody of Supergirl based on the pleated skirt and scalloped-cut boots) and it doesn't really matter - the OTK position is good while the strange implement seems to be some kind of spatula. We also can't tell you why Superchick's headband is falling down so far it's covering her eyes, nor who the Jungle Girl witnessing the spanking is. It's not a bad scene, but were just not that into one female dominating another.
Fury of the Femizons from Savage Tales #1 (May 1971). Script by Stan Lee; art by John Romita Sr. Scanned by the Web-Ed from Lee's book The Superhero Women (click to double-size).
Steve Ditko's influence on Stanton has been mentioned by many others over the years, but we think we're the first to spot the influence of Ditko's replacement on The Amazing Spider-Man, John Romita Sr. It's not Romita's work on that strip we're thinking of but rather a one-shot that Romita did with Stan Lee in the May 1971 issue of Savage Tales called "The Fury of the Femizons". This was a dystopian tale of a future 23rd century in which savage and brutal women outnumber and dominate men - you can see how a situation like that, a nightmare to any normal person, would appeal to Stanton - and our guess is that he was fully aware of the work. What we think he took from Romita was primarily his shadings, although he lightened them up quite a bit and we can't tell whether he used the same inking technique - in fact, we're not sure if Romita used pen or brush. Romita didn't often have the time to do his own inking, a fact we would have mentioned when discussing him in our recent magnum opus Who Was the ACES Artist? Part 2 if it hadn't been so long already, but he was obviously quite capable in that department.
Romita's influence, if it's not our imagination, may be hard to see. For one thing, Romita's pencils are much tighter and cleaner than Stanton's, so even identical inking would produce different total results, and of course Romita's women are extremely slender and subtly well-proportioned, whereas Stanton's...well, little more needs to be said about them. Romita's shading is very dark, much darker than Stanton's as is appropriate given the subject matter of Lyra and the Femizons, and of course he's a much better artist, but if you look closely we think you'll see at least a slight resemblance between this work and Stanton's Blunder Broad. (We won't tax anyone's patience further by doing blow-ups with yellow markings as we have on other occasions, notably in "ACES".)
