The Meeting of Nast and Watterson in Central Jersey

Nast turns the lens on himself in this self-deprecating parody of Stanley and Livingstone's famous African encounter, transplanted to a snowy New Jersey yard. On the left, Nast arrives escorted by a ragged honor guard—one man shouldering a rifle, another hoisting an American flag, a third blowing a horn—making absurd pageantry of a neighborly visit. On the right, a bowing figure identified as Henry Watterson, the fiery Louisville Courier-Journal editor and Nast's political opponent, doffs his hat in exaggerated greeting while children and a servant watch from the porch. A sign reading "Home of Nast" anchors the scene. The caption quotes Watterson's reported effusiveness. The joke cuts both ways: Nast mocks his own celebrity while poking at the Southern Democrat's sudden cordiality toward a cartoonist who had savaged his party.