Judge — May 3, 1919 — page 7: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Where There's a Will, There's a Way" This six-panel satirical comic advertises a fake product called an "Intoxicater" that allegedly works "like magic." The joke traces a con artist's pitch: panel 1 shows him hawking the device; panel 2 depicts a customer buying it; panels 3-4 show the customer using it on himself, becoming increasingly disheveled and intoxicated; panel 5 shows him chasing a woman in drunken chaos; panel 6 depicts his final, explosive collapse. The satire mocks both patent medicine scams (common in early 20th-century America) and the absurdity of mechanical solutions to human problems. The pun "Intoxicater" (intoxicate + creator) drives home that the device simply gets users drunk—it "works" exactly as advertised, just not beneficially. The title suggests resourcefulness overcome by folly.