Life — February 14, 1918 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is the Valentine's Day issue cover of *Life* magazine (February 14, 1918). The illustration shows a fashionable woman in a long coat and hat, playfully tossing love letters or valentines that scatter around her. The title "Life" and caption "INCENDIARY MATTER" create the joke. The satire plays on "incendiary"—literally, material that causes fire—equating the woman's romantic correspondence with something dangerous and inflammatory. This is a visual pun: love letters are "hot" both romantically and, treated as explosive devices, literally. Given the 1918 date (during World War I), the humor likely also references wartime anxiety about explosives and sabotage, making the domestic romance imagery ironically "dangerous." The cartoon exemplifies *Life*'s characteristic blend of social commentary and romantic humor from this era.