Judge, 1927-05-28 · page 13 of 36
Judge — May 28, 1927 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Judge page contains a darkly comedic story about "Mike," a cartoonist who cannot remember a crucial word needed to complete his final comic panel. The narrative builds tension through his escalating desperation—the unnamed word is essential to his career and identity. The punchline is brutally absurdist: Mike solves his problem by striking himself with a club, which triggers the memory of the word "POW!"—the very onomatopoeia he needed. However, the trauma causes his death, making the remembered word useless. The page also includes a cartoon about hiring someone for murder ("bump this guy off"), with a joke about payment by day-rate versus job-rate, and a caption about "compulsory equipment on cars saving shoe leather"—likely satirizing some proposed automotive safety regulation. The humor relies on exaggeration, irony, and morbid consequences typical of early 20th-century satirical magazine humor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
-—— JUDGE They left him and Mike la- bored away, swiftly, inspired as before. His droll characters quickly took form in their accus- tomed squares. The old familiar balloons were filled with their bright quips and snappy tee. All was lovely until the filling of the last square. Even this went smoothly, as Mike depicted the smaller of his famous men pros- trate on the floor as the other held aloft a giant club, its work al- ready done. Mike drew the bal loon, as usual. Then he stopped. He thought, he groped mentally. He leaped from his c paced the floor, scratc head perplexedly. FE his pen, his finger nails, the wall paper, but to no 1. What was the word? What was the word? Try as he might, he could not remember. That safe had done its work well after all. Mike's memory was gone. What was the word? Mike flung himself into his chair. He wrung his hands. What was the word? He didn’t know. HE DIDN'T KNOW! What was the use? Life held nothing for him without that word. His success, his fame rested upon it. Without it he was lost, would be a failure. What was the use? His eyes wandered to the cor- ner where rested the giant club, the model of that which he had air and ng his chewed Gane Leaper—Now, I want you to bump this guy off. I'll Broke—I wast ive you two hundred bucks for the job! Broker—Wher “I don’t want to do it by the job. I'd rather shoot him by Broke—Wheeling and Lake the day.” ELECTRIC QUT TON, Suggested compulsory equipment on cars saving shoe leather drawn so many times in his car- toons. The way out! He ap proached it slowly, purposefully. He grasped it, raised it over his head and brought it down oa his own head. In a flash—THE flash—the word came— Pow! But it was too late. —Joun C. Emery Squeezed Broker—You look as if you'd — | been. thre gh a railroad wreck. Erie common. comicbooks.com