Life, 1918-05-16 · page 15 of 40
Life — May 16, 1918 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon depicts an aircraft factory during World War I, with the caption quoting someone saying they had only four years to get aircraft ready. This appears to satirize the rushed American aircraft production effort during WWI. The bottom illustration shows a woman asking "What's a Roman nose, Uncle Jim?" with the punchline "Mine is a Roman nose—O-oh! Purple!" This is a visual pun: a "Roman nose" (meaning a prominent, curved nose) becomes funny when the speaker literally means her nose is purple from being hit. The humor relies on wordplay and physical comedy rather than political satire. Both pieces reflect wartime and domestic American humor circa 1917-1918.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“IT MAY NOT RE QUITE WILAT YOU EXPECTED, RUT WE ONLY HAD FOUR YEARS IN WHICH TO GET IT READY” A Sublime Gesture HE classic instance of Nero fiddling while Rome burned has been reversed by the always original and fearless Parisian, While the City of Light—now the City of Glory—was heing bombarded by a gun seventy miles away a great auction sale of French art was being carried on. Picture this scene: Above the explosion of shells and the crumbling of edifices a voice is heard: Ingres! Dela- croix! Degas! Renoir !—the names of France's great artists from the mouth of an auctioneer before the upturned faces of those bidding for the Beautiful. It was Archimedes who begged the invaders of his home to spare him for an hour until he had solved some pro- found mathematical problem. It is only the French who could still be more interested in the Beautiful than in the guns of the Hun, No gun that was ever fabricated in the foundries of Hundom can destroy such a people; no form of Frightful- “WHAT'S A ROMAN Nose, UNCLE JIM?” ness can still that immortal gesture of Beauty and Courage that the French spirit makes to Eternity! “o-ooH! PurpLe!” comicbooks.com