Life, 1922-01-05 · page 34 of 34
Life — January 5, 1922 — page 34: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical advertisement for *Life* magazine itself, disguised as social commentary. The cartoon shows a figure (likely representing a politician or warmonger) declaring "We've had enough war!"—expressing public exhaustion after World War I. The joke is darkly ironic: *Life* claims that acquiring 100 million subscribers will stop war, because "people who take LIFE regularly do not want to take life." The pun equates reading the magazine with pacifism. The text below mockingly instructs readers on whether to subscribe, using intentionally convoluted logic: read it multiple times, forget about it, reread it, and only subscribe if you find *no* jokes in it. This is self-aware satire—admitting the magazine may not be funny while simultaneously promoting subscriptions. The "Special Offer" box pitches reduced subscription rates. The overall effect satirizes both aggressive magazine marketing and post-WWI peace rhetoric, suggesting that cynical commercial interests hide behind noble causes.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
How Can We Stop War? = ON / weve HAD ea war! By securing within the next few weeks 100,000,000 regular subscrib- ers to LIFE. People who take LIFE regularly do not want to take life. Join the great army of Peace at five dollars a year. Or if you are doubtful about the five, make it a dollar for three months; we’ll do anything honorable (or otherwise) to get you to subscribe to this paper. If we have to, we'll If You Wish to Study This Number of LIFE even put something funny in it. Skim it over first rather rapidly to see if Obey that January impulse. there is anything funny in it. . If you find anything you think is funny, don’t be hasty ; don’t rush off and subscribe. Keep cool. Go over it again more slowly. Maybe the thing you thought funny at first isn’t so funny after all. Now begin all over again. This time ex- amine the pictures and text with some care; there may be a joke lurking somewhere that you overlooked. Remember that while there | is Lire there’s hope. 7 | Also, it may be that something you at first 7 ~~ Special thought wasn’t funny is now, in the light of 7 * @ more careful scrutiny, quite funny. One 4 Enclosed @ . 7 find -One Dol- never can be certain. 7 lar (Gaseal And now comes the final test. Lay the $1.20, Fore Ven number aside for a few days. If possible, $1.40). Send Lire for forget all about it. Then take it up with a ten weeks, fresh eye and go over it all again. If there is a real joke in it anywhere, you will now be pretty apt to know it. And if, after all these tests, you are abso- lutely sure that it does not contain a single joke, then you are safe. Your course is plain. You can, without fear of the conse- quences, become a regular subscriber. 2it 74 Open only to new subscribers; no subscriptions renewed | 7 at this rate. ¢ iM LIFE, 598 Madison Avenue, New York. «’ One Year, $5.00. (Canadian, $5.80; Foreign, $6.60.) comicbooks.com