Puck — February 20, 1878 — page 16: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a sequential narrative comic strip satirizing a figure identified as "Prince" Harry Genet, described as "a gentleman of 'character'" (1873). The twelve-panel story traces Genet's misadventures: he escapes a sheriff, breaks a "tweed ring," flees various locations, gets shipwrecked, is cast ashore in the Cannibal Islands, and is discovered by an African explorer. The satire appears to mock a real person's dubious reputation and social pretensions, using his surname "character"—suggesting moral failings or notoriety. The exotic settings and escalating absurdity parody penny-dreadful adventure narratives while commenting on contemporary scandals. The title's wordplay on "character" drives the joke: Genet has *lost* his good character and must be *found* and reclaimed by society.