A Brief Pause To Throw Pies At Huns

While earnestly piecing together my next post, I ran across this bit of Edwardian awesomeness that could not go unshared. It’s especially amusing if you like silent era in-jokes:

Between the vamps mesmerizing the tubby Huns, Douglas Fairbanks apparently ousting an entire regiment all by himself, Arbuckle’s stomach hanging over the edge of a trench, Keystone comedians wielding custard pies and bricks (everyone nowadays knows about the pies, but they threw bricks just as often, folks!), and the “gas attack” in the form of a pompous dramatic actor giving a reading, I can’t decide what makes me snort-laugh more.

This panel was the creative work of E.W. Gale, Jr. He drew comic strip called “Mr. Wad and His Family” for the Los Angeles Times in the mid-1910s, and also drew cartoons for Photoplay from about 1916 until the early ’20s. And that’s all the info I could scrounge up on him, on short notice anyways.

Here’s a little caricature of himself he drew for the Los Angeles Times, with a couple of his cartoon characters in tow:

Heh, I just realized why the child actors are in “The Infantry” (look, I’m a little tired after reading WWI books all afternoon, mkay?). Alright…back to writing!

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