Judge, 1928-05-19 · page 11 of 36
Judge — May 19, 1928 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "St. Junk" - Broadway Pastoral This illustration satirizes the commercialization of sex and romance on Broadway. The cartoon depicts a woman ("Dawn") engaging in a transactional encounter, where a suitor asks "Where are you going, my pretty maid?" and she responds that intimacy will cost $50,000—a substantial sum for the era. The satire targets the romanticized language of pulp fiction and cheap literature ("flame-taunted hair and scarlet lips"), mocking how such overwrought prose sells these stories at "ten cents a word." The woman's worldly behavior—casually smoking multiple cigarettes with a handkerchief—underscores the cynical reality beneath literary pretense. The title "St. Junk" appears to be a critical commentary on this mass-produced, sensationalized entertainment masquerading as art. The piece critiques both the commercialization of female sexuality and the degradation of literature into cheap, formulaic smut for mass consumption.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Illustration by James ‘Vrembath Broadway Pastoral “Where are you going, my pretty maid?” hen I can’t wed you, my pretty maid.” “That'll cost you $50,000, sir,” she said, of the flame-taunted hair and scarlet lips bee-stung lik violet pools and so on at ten cents a word for ay and lf, With a lazy hand composed of five taper cured fingers Dawn reached over to a small tal mani- by her bed and picked up a dainty chiffon handkerchief. folded it several times and ticd it securely around her out and lit several cigarettes, inhaling long breathy of smoke. Ah, there it was, sure (Continued on page 28) eyes. Then she gropec comicbooks.com