Life, 1916-01-13 · page 31 of 44
Life — January 13, 1916 — page 31: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This six-panel comic mocks an automobile enthusiast who designs a car based on impractical theoretical ideas rather than practical experience. **The joke:** The "theorist" invites someone for a ride in his custom-built vehicle, proudly explaining his backwards-facing seat design: by sitting backwards with a mirror, he eliminates wind and dust annoyance while driving. **The satire:** Over the course of the panels, his theory catastrophically fails—the car crashes, he loses control, and a woman is thrown into the air. Yet in the final panel, standing among wreckage near a "JUNK" sign, he remains delusionally confident: "Nevertheless, I am confident that my theory is correct." **The point:** This ridicules people who trust pure theory over real-world testing and evidence—a common target of early 20th-century satire about pseudoscientific thinking and automotive innovation. The humor lies in the theorist's stubborn refusal to acknowledge obvious failure.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Theorist v p i \ V Pee fig ( Se isl, “Yes, I had it built to order, after my own design, my theory being that by sitting backwards and looking into’ that mirror— 3 “all the annoyance due to dust and wind is entirely elimi. nated and the mind is less distracted from the business of steering. 3 6 “Ab! Oh! Something tells me I have miscalculated. “ Nevertheless, I am confident that my theory is correct.” comicbooks.com