Life, 1910-07-21 · page 36 of 40
Life — July 21, 1910 — page 36: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is **Life magazine satirizing itself**—a meta-joke about advertising hype. The masthead admits their regular ad writer was on vacation, so a substitute (hired by a book publisher) wrote this page as an actual book advertisement masquerading as promotion for next week's Life issue. **The satire:** The florid, absurdly overwrought language ("Tingles with red blood," "cosmic intensity," "soul-stirring passion") parodies the hyperbolic book-advertising copy Life's readers would recognize. The cartoon shows Pinocchio—the liar—labeled "THE GUILTY WRETCH WHO DID IT," identifying the deceptive advertising writer. **The punchline:** The footer confesses the truth: next week's issue isn't even finished yet, it's just ordinary, and they're mocking themselves for running this page anyway because of their "enormous circulation"—they can waste space and readers will still buy it. The fake "notices" from major papers and celebrities (J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, Anthony Comstock) further parody testimonial advertising.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Everybody Take Notice (The regular advertisement hack writer whom we em- ploy to evolve these pages has gone away on his vacation, and without our knowledge or consent has engaged as a substitute some man employed by one of our popular publishers to write the advertisements for books. We didn't know it until too late, so please don't read this page. It's a pure waste of space, and done only because, on account af our enormous circulation, tt was too late to substitute anything else.) One Year $5.00 Grips You Hard ! Next We cek’s Life 1s an Epoch Making Number. Vital With Human Interest. Leads you step by step from one thrilling situation to another, Compelling. Every typographical error freighted with a wonderful meaning. Humor is cosmic in its marvelous intensity. Subtle delineation of character vies with mind-racking plot to make it the most ab- sorbing number ever issued. A Heart Throb on every page. No other periodical of the age has the profundity of thought, the infinite breadth of view, the vigorous, fresh, masterful, pulsating, adroitly simple, yet con- vulsively complex, soul-stirring, passionate verve of this pungent number. . Tingles with red blood and makes you pant with feverish flutters. Piquant, poignant and pervading paragraphs. Breathes sincerity from every pore. Reeks with intensely dramatic climaxes. _Is tinctured with an all-pervading, incisive, palpitatiny, ineradicable THE GUILTY WRETCH WHO DID IT. SPECIAL OFFER.—Three Months $1.00. (Canadian, $1.13 ; Foreign, $1.26. Open only to new subscribers, No subscriptions renewed at this rate. This offer is net. Canadian $5.52 124 NOTICES. Westminster Gazette: Next week's Life teems with a wealth of illustration, and bids fair to be the best number yet. N.Y. Evening Post: \t has extraordinary vision, for one so young. We note a few im- portant errors, but on the whole we may safely recommend it. N. Y. Sun: A serious number as _ usual. [ We would say more, but our vitriol is te porarily exhausted owing to the return from Africa. J. P. Morgan: 1 devoured every line. J. D. Rockefeller: | reveled in it. Anthony Comstock: Clean and wholesome. I took no interest in it. NOT BY fe Better Skip this Page Entirely,— othing In It The joke of it all ts that the next number isn't cet made up yet (they never are when this page is written) and the writer of this page (whoever he is) has ev written it as if it were an advertisement for a boo be candid, the next number really isn't anything muck Not even a special. Just an ordinary number. God things in it, aheourse: Even if we tried to keep all th good things out o}one number, there are too many peop! working against us to doit. By the way, have you Obeye! That Impulse? Never too late. Foreign $6.04 mands Americ receive haps— I age spect, instead labor w extent \ PS. is best t ice of 1 Forr - comicbooks.com