Life, 1926-09-09 · page 9 of 40
Life — September 9, 1926 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous nature guide presenting the hippopotamus through exaggerated, anthropomorphic observations. The cartoon catalogs hippo traits—their capacity for mud, powerful jaws, social behavior ("cooing softly to its mate"), and physical characteristics (freckles, solid tons of meat). The satire mocks pretentious natural history writing by treating a prosaic animal with overwrought poetic language ("charming ways, forseeth, and ivory baseball bats for teeth"). References like "hippocampus's parade" and "battle of manila bay" appear to be humorous asides. The comic uses exaggerated illustrations and puns ("hip! hip! herraigh!") to parody both wildlife documentation and genteel magazine humor conventions. It's lighthearted zoological satire targeting the period's earnest nature writing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
scampers light on yonder hill, then lifts its faerie foot so still, its downy digits clasped so sweet— ten solid tons of stolid meat! Behold it catapult its frame, like any unreductd dame, into the mighty smear and cause six feet of tide, blamed near! Novw frisks it fleet from bough to bow, but I don't know exactly how, our topic’s oft, blue ey showing love light. } its soft blue eyes alight with love— I wonder what it’s thinking of ! hip! hip! herraigh! the hippo’s hips, A-male; Befe ter. Just see it think, brave, limpid thing! Just see it listen to it sing! See how its diaphragm is curved— such adipose must be deserved! Now cooing softly to its mate like fog-horns with a heavy date, a long-legged hippo. (eaves as hen tushes)| or movthing daintily its cud— two tepid tons of grass and mud! ee hippopotamuses’s parade Sround, between seasons. Great gosh all fis! what 2 torse! This injy-rubber circus horse, this apoplectic whale on pegs must have four solid concrete legs! just how close 3 Soois tween a Cur! an a cockeyed yy comes| to being 2 hi anus, S, our topic all broke out with frockles 32 awhel _ rare Ch: But it hath charming ways, forseeth, and ivory baseball bats for teeth; 0 | gscat auk, in the ict Of auking. see text, if you think that will help an two darling, precious, cutie ears and a coal truck ratio in its gears. Where’er he tromps he smears the map, this overgrown s€a-going sap. S [hippo swatter,] I longs to up and swat em, I, Oh, Hippo! Hippopotami! comicbooks.com