Judge — March 2, 1929 — page 6: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Judge" - "Little Studies in Success: The Business Man" This satirical comic strip mocks the ambitious American businessman through eight sequential panels. The progression shows a man's rise from humble beginnings (panel 1: carrying dishes) through increasingly dishonest tactics—desk work involving questionable schemes (panels 4-6), manipulating chess pieces (suggesting strategic deception), and culminating in panel 8 where he leads a parade of admiring followers under a banner reading "Colossal Success." The satire suggests that business success in this era required moral compromise and manipulation rather than honest work. The chess imagery implies calculated, game-like scheming. By showing the "successful" businessman as a leader of blind followers, the cartoonist critiques both the corrupted individual and society's uncritical admiration for wealth-accumulation regardless of its methods.