Life, 1919-08-07 · page 17 of 44
Life — August 7, 1919 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous comic strip imagining an absurdly over-regulated animal society where natural animal behavior becomes illegal. Each panel depicts anthropomorphized animals being arrested or confronted by police for ordinary conduct: - A beaver is threatened with arrest for saying "dam" - An owl is told to release a chipmunk (confiscating food) - A squirrel faces search and seizure for "harboring a nut" - An animal must surrender an fermenting apple house The satire mocks **excessive government regulation and bureaucratic overreach**—likely referencing contemporary concerns about expanding laws, Prohibition (note the "fermenting" reference), or general administrative intrusion into daily life. The absurdity of criminalizing animals' natural instincts emphasizes how irrational such regulation becomes. The title "When the World Is Perfect" is deeply ironic, suggesting this regulated dystopia as a dystopian "ideal."
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Al. | PE When the World Is Perfect “Lf your name's Beaver, then T am To pinch you, sir, for saying ‘ Dam"! f 3 Here! Late sup; mnie™\)) Drop that chipmunk from your claw pers are against the law.” “My orders are to search your hut They say you're harboring a nut!” comicbooks.com