Life — April 8, 1915 — page 11: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Cartoon Analysis: "How To Do It" (Life Magazine, Page 611) This page satirizes American literary types and their fictional subject matter. The top cartoon, "Some Are Born Golfers," depicts various character archetypes—a "Faro Nell" (frontier woman), a villain, and a "sour dough" prospector—representing popular pulp fiction genres. The subsequent panels mock different literary categories: Southern novels (with "Magnolias"), Manhattan tales, New England fiction, and Western stories featuring "Broncho Bob." Walter G. Doty's accompanying poem mocks writers for chasing commercial success rather than artistic merit, advising them to simply "fill out Form Eleven"—suggesting formulaic writing reduced to bureaucratic process. The satirical "Advice to Fortune's Favorites" section below ridicules both popular fiction tropes and wartime sensationalism in entertainment media.