Life, 1909-12-30 · page 25 of 29
Life — December 30, 1909 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily a **subscription promotion page** for *Life* magazine, not a political cartoon. The page advertises upcoming special issues, particularly the "Auto Number" featuring a sixteen-cylinder automobile—a reference to luxury cars of the era (the 1920s-30s) that represented technological progress and aspirational American lifestyle. The cartoons are **self-promotional illustrations** showing families enjoying automobiles and reading *Life*. The satire is gentle: the magazine humorously warns subscribers not to miss issues while traveling in summer, suggesting that missing an edition would be a "calamity." There's a playful jab at a reader from Kansas who received an issue with an "improper number" (wrong issue in sequence), which *Life* dismissively acknowledges while promoting subscriptions. The overall tone is tongue-in-cheek advertising dressed as editorial content, typical of *Life*'s format blending humor with business promotion.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
—NEXT WEEK— Life’s GREAT Auto Number (The Great Telegram Contest Begins in this Number) IFE’S Auto Number, coming on the first week in January, is a sixteen-cylinder record - smashing engine of contemporaneous con- viviality. You never saw anything like it. It will take any sized family, no matter how large, and carry them over the hills and far away to the land of eternal sunshine. Our Motto: After on January 13th. follow the great Spinster’s Number, which, in tum will be followed, on January ill Regular. and Valentine Numbers. Subscription, $5.00. The perusal of the advertising pages alone is a liberal education. No tire troubles here; no vibrations, except from individual diaphragms. Eats up the smiles. COMING ! Let Joy Be Unconfned! CONTESTS. | Beginning wit N ear, LIFE will offer to his friends a number of Contests, which will be of absorbing interest. For one of these the winner will be paid at the rate of ten dollars a word. Another is the College Contest, open to all College Students. And Summer Will Be Here Later, before you know it. And with it will come a‘glorious galaxy of Life’s_ Summer num- bers. By being a regu- lar subscriber, you don’t have to worry about Life at all. You just get it, and when summer comes, with its various problems, you simply smile and smile again. The point we wish to make is that in summer you are always flitting about more or less. real danger, in case you are of a regular You may miss a number. Can you imagine a the Auto Namber will come a Regular ‘Then, on January zoth, will In Februar. | come th This is the time of subscriber. greater calamity? Canada, $5.52, Foreign, $6.04, Don't Worry About That Improper Number, It’s Coming. A friend in Kansas wrote us the other p your nerve? We shoald say not! We are gradually abandoning all sense of shame, and it will come. It wouldn't be safe to have it around the office much longer. PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY. IT IS AN OFFER. We should like, above all things, to have you send in five fall dollars and be come a regular subscriber. By doing this at once you will receive LIFE for one year, and a photo-gravure reproduction of Balfour Ker's drawing, ‘PLAYING BRIDGE," as a premium. Bat if you would rather try Life for a short time, we will make you a special offer, namely : Life for three months for one dollar, (Canadian, $1.13) Fill out the attached cou pon, and retarn it to LIFE 17 W. 31st Street, New York Enclosed find one dollar. Send Life for three months to comicbooks.com