Judge — November 9, 1918 — page 8: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This WWI-era Judge cartoon by Walter de Maris depicts two soldiers in a trench discussing the difficulties of advancing through barbed wire obstacles. One soldier, seated and smoking, remarks to his companion "Ed" about how challenging it would be for a camel to navigate through such defenses. The humor appears to be absurdist wartime banter—soldiers making lighthearted observations about impossible scenarios to cope with the grim realities of trench warfare. The reference to camels is likely either: 1. A non-sequitur joke typical of soldiers' dark humor 2. A possible reference to Middle Eastern campaigns (though unclear without fuller context) The cartoon satirizes the brutal conditions of WWI trench warfare while capturing soldiers' coping mechanisms through gallows humor. The crude dialect spelling reflects early 20th-century comic conventions.