Judge, 1919-07-19 · page 29 of 36
Judge — July 19, 1919 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is an advertisement masquerading as a comic, published July 19, 1919. It depicts a fashionable woman and man in a luxury automobile (license plate EN1910) having a conversation about tires. The "joke" plays on a double meaning: "whales blow" refers both to whales surfacing to breathe and to tire blowouts (a common problem with early automobile tires). The woman asks if the tires are "whales," implying they blow out frequently. The man reassures her that Kelly-Springfield Cord tires are superior—they never blow out like whales blow occasionally. This is essentially a product endorsement using wordplay and the aspirational imagery of well-dressed motorists to sell tire reliability to early automobile owners, for whom tire failure was a genuine frustration.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
July 19, 1919 A tL ee w/ ba\\\I < } ea S reli’ Vi — — “Aren't your tires whales!” “Not at all: whales blow occasionally; Kelly-Springfield Cords never do.” 29 comicbooks.com