Judge — January 8, 1921 — page 10: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Perfect Newspaper Comic" This is a single-panel comic strip by Ellison Hoover satirizing newspaper comics' reliance on sound effects and onomatopoeia. The strip shows a woman repeatedly performing exaggerated actions while a man in a top hat responds with increasingly absurd sound-effect words: "AWK," "POW," "OOMP," "GLUG," "OOF," and finally listing them all together ("AWK POW OOMP GLUG OOF"). The satire targets how some comic strips prioritize loud, attention-grabbing noises and physical comedy over actual plot or dialogue. The woman's meaningless gestures paired with the man's collection of exclamations mock comics that substitute genuine humor for crude sound effects meant to entertain readers. It's a critique of what Hoover considers "perfect" newspaper comics—ones driven purely by noise rather than wit or storytelling.