Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, March 1924 · page 34 of 71
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #57 — page 34: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains no cartoons—only aphorisms (witty sayings) from "Captain Billy's Whiz Bang," a popular 1920s satirical magazine. The humor is cynical and tongue-in-cheek commentary on romance and relationships. The jokes mock both sexes: men who abandon women or flee from them; women as expensive to maintain ("small fortune every season"); the contradiction between how women and men remember past loves; and love itself as an unsafe gamble where both parties lose more than they gain. References like "grass widow" (divorced/separated woman), "flappery" (flirtation in the Jazz Age style), and "osculation" (kissing) date this to the 1920s. The tone is sardonic, treating romantic entanglement as inherently foolish—characteristic of post-WWI American humor that rejected sentimentality. The aphorisms function as bawdy, cynical wisdom for a male audience.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
32 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Whenever a man disappears, it is a sign that he is either running away with a woman or from one. * * * * Before the grass of the grass widow can fade, another jackass is there to nibble it. * * * * Better to love a short man than never to love a tall. * * * * The mermaids were the original tale-bearers. * * * * Trying to maintain your reputation on a basis of lies and false dealing is like trying to hold your pants up with one suspender and all your buttons off. * * * * Osculation is the sincerest form of flappery. * * * * It's an ill wind that blows no eye good. * * * * Girls are delicate vessels which require a small for- tune every season to keep in sails. * * * * The further you go with a pull the easier it will be to fall when you get pushed. * * * * The man who thrills with delight when he beholds a beautiful woman is fit for great and perilous enter- prises. * * * * A woman cherishes the memory of her first love affair with the same zest that a man forgets his. * * * * Love is a game in which both parties play longer than is safe and lose more than they can afford.