Judge, 1909-06-12 · page 7 of 16
Judge — June 12, 1909 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"The Yarns of Captain Fibb"** is a tall-tale comic strip mocking exaggerated frontier storytelling. Captain Fibb spins increasingly absurd stories about Antarctic survival—freezing solid, being coated in ice, rescued by a convenient oil stove salesman. The humor lies in the obvious fabrication: each panel escalates the impossibility, and the final panel reveals the joke's structure through the character's own admission that the timing was suspiciously perfect. **"Literary Statistics"** is a satirical essay critiquing publishing industry hyperbole. It mocks how publishers label every new book as a "best-seller" or "great popular success," and notes the absurd category "novels of the century" doesn't yet apply to recent works. The tone suggests publishers cynically market books to readers who only care about promotional labels, not actual merit. **Minor cartoons** include "Getting an Early Start" (a father wants his son to study law immediately rather than waste time on basic subjects) and "The Ruler of Railroads" (likely satirizing railroad magnate E.H. Harriman's market manipulations).
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE YARNS OF CAPTAIN FIBB. “Talk about cold weather ! 3. — Well, boys, by the time that hungry when I wuz in the Antarctic regions it wuz so polar bear comes fer me in the distance, and me to mel wuz friz solid under a coatin® cold that when I stood still fer a minute me] feet anchored fast! It looks like I wuz a goner fer of about two feet of ice, and the blame critter friz tight to the ground so I couldn't move!— __ fair. _Jist then the sleet comes down like thunder couldn't git at me! — and I iwuz fast gittin’ a thick coatin’ of ice over Why, once — And then to make things wuss a big 4. —— Bimeby he sees it wuz no use and am- 5, —— Well, mebbe you won't helieve it, but 6, ——and in ten minutes I wuz thawed Iles off, leavin? me to perish alone of cold in the — when i wuz near friz to death along comesan and as comfortable as a hot-house plant. solid cake of ice! ‘There wuzn't agent fer a stove house in New York, sellin’ oil — swoggle me, if that chap didn’t come alon, thawin’ out till next summer, and I stoves —— at the right time!” he LITERARY STATISTICS. REVIEW of the recent books shows no curtailment in the aggregate output. There are, however, a few changes in character. There have not been so many “‘books of the year’ as formerly, but, on the other hand, there has been a marked increase in ‘* modern Uncle Tom's Cabins " and ‘* best novels since ‘ Les Miserables.’ *” The supply of “ best-sellers,” ‘ great popular successes," and “* instantaneous hits’ has been adequate, as such information is all most read- ers care to have about a book. On account of the fact that the century is so young, ‘* novels of the century "’ have not yet got a firm foothold. There have been many books which are “‘different,"’ and not a few which possess ** that delicate human-interest charm which immediately strikes the heart of the discerning reader’’—a breed of reader, by the way, which is only known in ad- vertisements. We are reliably informed that several novelists are hard at work at this very moment. HLLAN 0, JONI. GETTING AN EARLY START- 6CESATHER, what do you wish ¢ when I “The same as I am, my son—a lawye “Then, instead of wasting any more time on arithmetic, geography, andsuch truck, I'd better be getting at the hy- pothetical question, hadn't 17” l CAUTIOUS THE RULER OF RAILROADS. man is like a Stocks were not running to water, hat-pin—the head Lambs were not after the bait, prevents him from But Harriman, twisting and turning, | : Soon bad all his lines running straight, going too far. comicbooks.com