Judge — June 5, 1926 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Judge Magazine Satire: Two Comics About Men's Incompetence This page contains two satirical pieces mocking men's bumbling behavior, likely from the 1920s-1930s. **"When There's a Boy in the Family"** depicts a disheveled man creating chaos at a school—the caption "The moving finger writes—and having writ, moves on" (referencing Omar Khayyam's *Rubaiyat*) sarcastically compares his destructive behavior to fate itself. **"A Nearsighted Man's Day"** by Frank L. Paynter is a day-in-the-life joke mocking male incompetence: he dresses in his wife's underwear, eats wax fruit, gets drunk on shoe polish, mistakenly kisses his wife thinking she's his stenographer, and eventually sleeps with the cat. The humor targets absent-mindedness, alcoholism, and marital infidelity—common Judge targets. **"A Speak-easy"** (bottom right) appears to be a separate cartoon depicting Prohibition-era illegal bars, likely mocking speakeasy culture. These pieces use exaggeration to satirize contemporary masculine behavior during a period of social change.