Life — July 10, 1924 — page 23: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a humorous comic strip showing a slapstick sequence where someone attempts to catch a hippopotamus using fly-paper. The panels depict escalating chaos: a person applies fly-paper to what appears to be a hippo by water, gets increasingly entangled with the sticky paper themselves, and ultimately ends up completely wrapped and immobilized alongside the hippo near a building. The joke is the absurdist premise—using a tool designed for catching insects to capture a massive animal—combined with the physical comedy of the plan backfiring spectacularly. The cartoonist (signed "Strothmann") uses exaggerated poses and expressions to emphasize the character's misfortune. This appears to be early 20th-century satirical humor relying on visual gags rather than political commentary.