The Judge, Vol. 6, No. 138

This political cartoon exemplifies the satirical humor that shaped Victorian popular reading. A bearded workingman with exaggerated features—rendered in the crude ethnic caricature typical of the era—considers which barrel to tap at a Democratic National Convention meeting place. The barrels, labeled with dollar signs and bearing the faces of party figures, literalize the visual metaphor of political corruption as commercial transaction.

Weekly papers like The Judge descended directly from penny dreadfuls and bloods—cheap serialized fiction that gripped working-class readers with melodrama, crime, and sensation. Though The Judge positioned itself as satirical commentary for a slightly more respectable audience, it inherited the penny press's bold graphics, irreverent tone, and appetite for caricature. This merger of political satire with visual storytelling would prove foundational to the modern comic book.