The Wasp, 1918 · page 37 of 330
The Wasp — 1918 — page 37: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This appears to be a page of **narrative fiction rather than a political cartoon**. It's prose text from *The Wasp* magazine, describing a scene aboard a boat. The passage depicts a man named James Burnham in distress at sea. A wasp (the bird) approaches him with "round, crimson eyes," and a shark's fin circles the vessel ominously. Burnham awakens from drugged sleep, appearing physically deteriorated—"haggard from the ravages of the drug." The piece suggests a survival story with gothic atmosphere: isolation, danger (predatory wildlife), and substance addiction creating a threatening environment. Without seeing the magazine's cover date or surrounding context, the specific satirical target is unclear. The passage may be social commentary on drug use, maritime danger, or human desperation, but the image alone doesn't reveal *The Wasp's* intended critique or which public figure or social issue Burnham might represent.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
28 : THE WASP of air with no flicker of effort. At last it slid downwards, circled on arched pinions, hung low _above the boat’s stern for a few seconds and © stared at the man beneath the avnine with round, crimson eyes. The man saw it and cursed feebhy, The bird veered with a tremble of its wing-tips, circled _and slanted upwards, and returned to its old - position and the preening of its spotless and - untroubled breast. In a running blue slope astern that was alive with cross-fires of green and gold, a long and slender shadow wavered, grew in distinctness, and suddenly a black fin rode the sloping seas like _ a little sail. The fin circled the lazily riding boat, then sank gently and vanished for a time. The long shadow wavered like a ghost of cae ness under the boat’s counter. The sun went down at last, and just Belts the sudden white stars were lit above the purpling sea, James Burnham awoke again from his heavy ‘sleep and crawled slowly backwards from beneath the square of sail-cloth. He stood up in the stern of the boat and scanned the fading horizon. His face was haggard from the ravages of the drug, his hard ~ eyes smouldered, his dry lips were slanted in a Comichooks.com