The "Cone of Silence," made famous in the Get Smart comedy series, first appeared over a century earlier, in Punch, 1857.

[For Jonathan.]

An illustration from a 1907 issue of The Strand magazine.  The caption reads: "If you insist on denouncing me, you little know the consequences you will bring upon yourself!"

Dedicated to Gordon Meyer.

We discovered a precursor to the film A Cry in the Dark (1988).  A dingo took her baby in this image from The Wide World Magazine, 1900.

An illustration of a battily smiling moon from a 1901 issue of Harper's magazine.

An illustration from an 1878 issue of Harper's magazine.

When pigs fly!  Lewis Carroll is popularly credited with the earliest reference to pigs flying (1872).  But here's one from the May 23, 1857 issue of Punch.  (We do what we can!)

Staring into the depths: an illustration from a 1915 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "He gazed outward with her into the far, dim, restful spaces."

Star Wars' light sabre prototypes:  an illustration from an 1896 issue of Scientific American magazine.

While looking for the proverbial farmer's daughter, we encountered "the beautiful, hypothetical stranger"!  She appears in a 1911 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine.

An illustration from a 1910 issue of Hampton's magazine.  The caption reads: "Just as Painless Parker yanked out a molar, he would stamp his foot, and the band would play, so that the audience couldn't hear the patient's cries."

Dedicated to tooth enthusiast and musician Gary Barwin.

"Now you cannot move!"  An illustration from a 1909 issue of Saturday Evening Post magazine.

An illustration of a genie in a fireplace from a 1900 issue of The Strand magazine.

Four months before the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, we find this illustration in Punch:

An illustration from an 1878 issue of Harper's magazine.

Scream in ecstasy: we located ancestors of Salvador Dalí's moustache fairies, in The Californian (1891).

An illustration from a 1900 issue of The Strand magazine.  The caption reads: "He seemed to be whirled away."

An illustration from a 1904 issue of Saturday Evening Post magazine.  The caption reads: "To reassure her he began doing incredible things with the big silver hoops."  It was this illustration that inspired our article for Secret Art Journal, "Magic as Reassurance."

Staring into the depths: an illustration from a 1901 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "Terris sat and looked with the god."

We say this in infinite jest: here's a precursor to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1,088 pages), from Punch, 1853.