Judge, 1910-08-20 · page 16 of 16
Judge — August 20, 1910 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous tall tale comic strip featuring an unreliable narrator—Captain Fibb—recounting an absurdly implausible fishing method to a gullible audience. The joke relies on escalating absurdity: he buys a fish-horn from a tackle shop, uses it as a musical instrument to attract fish, plays dances that cause the fish to exhaustedly leap into his boat of their own accord. The satire targets credulous listeners who accept obvious nonsense, and pokes fun at exaggerated fishing stories—a tradition of boastful, false anecdotes. The fish's humanized responses (dancing, getting tired, abandoning self-preservation) heighten the ridiculousness. The strip's title emphasizes this is mere yarn-spinning, making the humor accessible: recognizing the impossibility is the point. This represents *Judge* magazine's comedic style—gentle ridicule of common human foibles like tall-tale telling.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE THE YARNS OF CAPTAIN FIBB. H ALL KINDS OF FISHING TACKLE PLAIN AND FANCY 1. "The biggest catch of fish I ever made wuz done in a very onusual way. I 2. —— Now if theres anything a fish likes to hear it's a fish- passes a store where they sells fish-horns, and I sez to meself, sez 1, ‘I'll try horn; so I anchors in a good spot and begins pipin’ away on one of them fish-horns,’ sez I, So I buys one.—- that horn. —— ‘ 3. —— Purty soon the fish rises outer the water and gathers ‘round me, flop- 4. —— Then I plays some dances on that nawiical instrument, and them fish all pin’ about as though their little flippers would bust fer joy! —— takes partners and flops ‘round the boat in a mad abun reckless glee. —— 5. —— Bimeby they gits so exhausted from dancin’ that they all flops inter 6, —— Swash me lee scupyers if I didn't have a boatload in no time, and all I the boat to save themselves from drownin’ ! —— had to do wuz to pull ‘em ashore The fish sure do love fish-horns !""