Life, 1916-01-27 · page 31 of 44
Life — January 27, 1916 — page 31: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This six-panel comic satirizes pedantic know-it-alls who bore others with ostentatious displays of observation. A pompous character lectures his companion "Podger" about nature—wading birds balancing on one leg, hares hopping rather than running—smugly claiming his developed powers of observation mean "nothing can come as a surprise." The satire culminates when, despite this boastful claim to perfect alertness, the theorist is struck by an automobile while sleepwalking, with an angry driver demanding "What's the matter with ye? Walkin' in yer sleep?" The joke: The self-proclaimed observer of everything misses the most obvious danger before him. It mocks intellectuals who parade specialized knowledge while lacking common sense or awareness of practical reality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Theorist 1, “What surprises me more than anything. my dear Podger, is that so many natural phenomena pass by us totally unnoticed. 3. “The wading birds, when sleeping, invariably stand upon one leg, the body being so perfectly’ balanced that the equilibrium is maintained without appreciable effort. 5. “In short, nothing can come as a surprise to one who is constantly on the alert.” : WEA iy Neda GER 2. “All my life I have made a point of developing my powers of observation, until nothing now escapes me, You have probably never noticed that— 4. “The common hare, supposed by most people to run, in reality depends for his’ motive power on a series of hops or springs, which I here reproduce for your benefit. CAN SLTGAS 6, Angry Autoist: What's the matter with ye? Walkin’ in yer sleep? ] comicbooks.com