Life, 1912-01-04 · page 20 of 108
Life — January 4, 1912 — page 20: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily a **promotional announcement** for Life magazine's upcoming content, with satirical self-promotion characteristic of early 20th-century American humor magazines. The cartoon shows a figure in bed with pillows and blankets—likely representing the reader or the public—being roused awake, presumably by Life's editorial mission. The text employs **mock-grandiose promises**: Life will elect a president "entirely satisfactory to everyone" (clearly impossible, the joke being their overconfidence). The magazine boasts superior artistic content and pledges to continue championing women's suffrage and fashion coverage. **Key satire**: The phrase "Life without LIFE is lifeless" and rhetorical questions like "can you now hesitate about sending in your subscription?" parody advertising hyperbole. Life is simultaneously claiming to be independent, artistic, literary, *and* humorous—essentially everything at once. This reads as self-aware mockery of magazine advertising conventions of the era, while genuinely promoting subscriptions at $5.00 annually ($0.10 per newsstand copy).
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Life for the Coming Year T would be impossible, O critical, cosmopolitan and constantly increasing gentle reader, to give you an exact idea of the things which LIFE will present to you during the year to come; but from the vast collection, we may mention a few. LIFE expects to elect a president who will be entirely satisfactory to everyone. In case, however, he should afterwards fail in any particular, we willinform you of the fact. LIFE will place before his readers each week the work of more leading artists than any other paper in the world. Every number will contain from forty to fifty original pictures. LIFE’S literary search-light will, as heretofore, continue to illuminate all the dark places. Every week LIFE will be issued in a unique colored cover. The specia! numbers will add to the joy of nations. Among others may be men- tioned the Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Pacific Coast, Sunny South and Spendthrift's. Life without LIFE is lifeless. LIFE will continue to lead the Woman Suffrage movement as heretofore. Also the fashions. Being strictly independent, artistic, literary, philosophic, humorous, and in fact, all of the things which you know LIFE is, can you now, in justice to yourself, hesitate about sending in your subscription ? i ies cise / find One Dol- RE i rues 7 lar (Canadian $1.13. LIFE is on sale gle td every Tuesday 7 vodign $1.0). bead throughout the year, on all news-stands, for //_ VAPE for three months %0 ten cents. Obey That Impulse Subscription $5.00 And begin the New Year right by availing Sa Canadian $5.52 yourself of LIFE’S Special Offer, three months Open only to new subscribers: no subscription Foreign $6.04 for One Dollar. See Coupon attached. Soporte roses (Ene one meee Pe Lire, 17 West 31, New York Z