Judge, 1928-12-22 · page 16 of 36
Judge — December 22, 1928 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical story mocks the arrogance of a powerful businessman ("a Power in the Business World") who enters a shop with domineering confidence. The salesman attempts to sell him high-fashion women's garments (chemises, tea-gowns, nightrobes by designer Vionnet), using sophisticated terminology about asymmetrical appliqués. The joke: each refined fashion description renders the tough businessman literally helpless—he goes deaf, sees spots, nearly faints. He's completely undone by aesthetic/feminine sophistication he cannot comprehend. Overwhelmed and embarrassed, he purchases the entire department just to escape. The satire targets masculine business-world posturing being exposed as hollow when confronted with intellectual or artistic domains outside male dominance. The dark twist ending—his wife elopes with the chauffeur upon receiving these gifts—suggests the fashionable garments (or his pathetic weakness) doom his marriage. The cartoon uses the businessman's collapse to mock aggressive capitalist masculinity as fragile theater.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE “He Was a Power—” He entered the shop like a ship at full steam. His was the dig nity of an ocean liner, his the force of a steam roller. Business es said he had a Mind Like a Sword, a Will of Iron, a Backbone of Steel. He was, in other words, a Power in the Business World. And he was out to buy a Christmas gift for his A Christmas gift for my * he rumbled at the sales girl. But Powers in the Business World were her me A chemise with tations in uw encrus geometric manner of Vionnet?" she shot at him. The that Awed the Board | of Directors. grew vacant, even furtiv “A tea-gown with a feeling for anir so YOU BOUGHT THE RENTS, HE YELL BULBS TO RAI 2D RABINOWI “What's that terrible noise in the apartment upstairs?” sifted a prober. “Odds collars and cuffs!” admitted He Who Gets ion restrained by seam Grilled. “It’s only the cove from the furniture instalment place manipulation?” she said. His collecting his easy payments!” Mind of Steel crumbled and dis- solved. “Or perhaps this night-robe, with assymetrical appliqués sug gesting—" Suddenly he was stone deaf, he saw spots before his eyes, his breath came in assymetrical appliqués—. He yed and would have she hadn't clutched his “Which will you ts hissed in his ear. His Backbone crumpled. He hea her voice faintly, from a great distance, From another great distance (or maybe it was the one), his own answered. | “Tl take them all.” He clutched the salesgirl for sup- port—but she pushed him care- lessly against the counter. Un- able to move, he stayed there. i What cared she? Her work was q a * H done. She sold him the whole | department. Christmas morning, Hi when his wife saw the gifts, she — | cloped with the chauffeur. Well—. —Catinnine Girorer an Ed GRAnS OLIVER AND IF ] HIGHLANDER SHE'S MINE | JASMINE Strout Proesteian (complacently)—This is lucky for me— } some one has shoveled a path all the way down this hill! comicbooks.com