Judge, 1907-09-21 · page 5 of 16
Judge — September 21, 1907 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a comic strip featuring "Nervy Nat," a recurring character in Judge magazine. The six-panel narrative shows Nat stealing or commandeering an experimental aircraft (an "air-buggy") from a "Balloon Club" marked "No Smoking." The humor derives from Nat's reckless escapades: he crashes the flying machine multiple times, narrowly escapes disasters, and experiences increasingly absurd mishaps—being struck by a meteor, encountering an express train mid-air, and landing in precarious situations. The satire likely mocks both the novelty of early aviation technology (still relatively new in the early 20th century) and the overconfident amateur aviator who ignores warnings. Nat's character represents the foolish everyman repeatedly getting into dangerous situations through his own audacity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
1, Nervy Nat—" Oh, look who's here! An atmospheric buggy, as sure as you live! How timely! A spin acrcss the firmament would just suit me at this moment. It is not mine, but t at is of slight consequence in these predatory times."* 3. Nervy Nat—"'Great Boston beans! if there isn’t an air-ship! Hey, sport! wilt run a race? Turn on your carburetter and that sparking dudad thing and line up.”” 5. Nervy Nat—"' Jumping crickets! what did I hit? Punctured by the prong of astar, 1 bet! And here am I, sitting alone in the midst of the at- mosphere! | feel like doing something rash.”” 2. Nervy Nat—"' By-bye, world! You were ever cold tuh meh. O'Toole and Melud What's-his-name, the British mollycoddle whose duds I acquired by accident and hold from necessity, are getting entirely too frequent for me. Ah, how restful this traveling by wireless!" 4. Nervy Nat—"*Say, this is going some! Something below has hooked me. As | live, it is an express-train! Ain't we tearing the atmesphere though? Whee!” 6. Nervy Nat—t'If someone will tell me how | managed to fall asleep In ‘a clothes-basket I'll be greatly obliged. Wow! Maybe it was a dream. Every time I eat canvasback duck and terrapin strange hallucinations assail me. Well, pup, what do we next ?”” NO. I6—NERVY NAT ANNEXES AN AIR-BUGGY AND HIKES FOR DISTANT SCENES. COPYRIGHT 1907 BY JUDGE COMPANY, FURLISHEKS, 225 FOURTH AVE., NEW YORK. NOTE.—The Firat Series of Nervy Nat's Adventures ts now ready, handsomely bound, tn book-form. P Address ‘JUDGE CO for postage when ordered by mi rice, 75 centes 10 cents additional PANY, 225 Fourth Avenue, New York. comicbooks.com