The Wasp — 1894 — page 459: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This comic strip satirizes a character named Snoots who boasts about riding his bicycle without hands. When he crashes, he becomes covered in flies—a visual pun on the phrase "flies on him" (meaning disgrace or failure clings to someone). The moral message is clear: pride precedes a fall. Snoots claims "That's just the way I fled!" but park flies have "marked him for their own," leaving him covered in insects and his bicycle ruined. The joke plays on the double meaning of "flies"—both literal insects and the metaphorical sense of shame. It's a cautionary tale about arrogance presented through exaggerated visual humor typical of early 20th-century satirical comics. The page is otherwise advertising champagne and other commercial goods.