Life, 1926-12-09 · page 16 of 45
Life — December 9, 1926 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the *Solid Silver Book*, a magazine that reprints classical literature to satisfy one million subscribers. The editor faces a crisis: they've exhausted all famous classical works—every English, American, Greek, Roman, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian, Oriental, and Scandinavian classic has been republished multiple times. The cartoon jokes depict the desperation that follows. One shows a father attempting to pass off his son's lie as classical testimony. Another illustrates a couple discussing attendance at a flower show, with the man joking he'll "stay home and get it over the radio"—mocking the magazine's absurd solution of recycling content. The satire targets both the magazine's creative exhaustion and early-20th-century mass-market publishing's hunger for safe, canonical material.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SAW YOU THROW THAT HIMSELF, YOU Famous Attorney: son, MR. JON WINDOW D TO LIE, ETC. BRICK THROUGH HIS GARAGE TRI His Son: sust 4 MOME 'T HAV INCRIMINATE HIM, IN THE SECOND PLACE, ETC. News Item ITH a view to future courtroom love-note reading, the National Association of Editors of Tabloid Newspapers has taken time by the forelock and issued following advice to misunderstood husbands: “In addressing your surreptitious (we looked the word up and can vouch for it) love, it is well to use some term of endearment. The following have received almost uni- versal approval. Use one or more at your pleasure. “Girlikins, babykins, honeykins, sweetikins, lovikins, dream-girl, dream-mate, dream-queen, dream-love, dream-darling, wonder-girl, wonder-mate, wonder-baby, wonder-love, wonder-darling, wonder-queen, and so on. “The possibilities for grouping and combinations are practically inexhaustible. For instance, ‘wonder’ or ‘dream’ may be prefixed to any of the terms ending in ‘kins,’ as ‘dream-honeykins,’ ‘wonder-honey' ‘dream - wonder - honeykins.’ Use as many hyphens as you possibly can. “The effect is always heightened if ‘my own,’ or, better, ‘my owney own’ is placed before the entire phrase.” RL. T. Revision ONE but the brave de- serts the fair. They’ve Got to Be Classics ae ow what are we to do for material?” asked the editor of the Solid Silver Book, a magazine de- voted for ycars to reprints of the Great Classics. “We have one million subscribers to satisfy and not a single thing left to satisfy them with. What are we to do?” His staff was silent. They knew that every last j of classical literature had been reprinted by ‘the mag: zine, and every item at least a dozen times. “Come on, sug- gest something,” the editor pleaded. “Here we are. We've done everything classical by everybody clas- sical — all the English and American writ- ers, all the Greeks, Romans, Frenchmen, Ital- ians, Spaniards, Germans, Rus- sians, Orientals, Scandinavians — every conceivable great name of literature has been published in our magazine. And now... well; gentlemen, without great names we are lost, that’s all.” The silence deepened, and the editor grew whimsical. “Of course, if we could make our plight known to Homer or Shakespeare or Boccaccio or Balzac or De Maupassant, we might persuade them to send in con- tributions. But that is physically impossible.” “Oh, but not metaphysically!” cried an assistant editor who had once conducted the Sunday supplement of a city newspaper. “Don't forget the spirit world!" “What do you mean?” demanded the editor. “I mean,” shouted the assistant, “that if we'll send out for two cartons of Camels, and sit down at our type- writers, we shall receive a sequel to the Odyssey from the spirit world—direct from Homer. With luck we ought to get an eleventh book of the Decameron, another slab of the Human Comedy, more Dark Lady sonnets, and new red-hot stuff from De Maupassant.” The Camels were sent for, and two months later the cir- culation of the Solid Silver Book went soaring into its second million. Tupper Greenwald. m a= Se a A “ARE YOU GOING TO THE FLOWER snow?” “No, 17's TOO MUCH TROUBL THINK ILL STAY HOME AND ( OVER THE RADIO.” S if it were necessary to prove that time flies, talk is now heard of modernizing one of Bernard Shaw's plays. comicbooks.com