We're finally beginning to understand the preposterous number of giant object illustrations in Popular Mechanics.  The message is that things are bigger (more important) than people.  This example is from 1925.

It's only funny if, in addition to all the wit, humor and eccentricity which the present day affords, there's also a comic frontispiece.  From Fairburn's Complete Pocket Melodist, Or New Multum in Parvo, 1840.

"The ogre transformed into a lion."  From The Cinderella Nursery Story Book, 1878.  This should also be of interest: How to Be Your Own Cat.

Key to Ghostism: Science and Art Unlock Its Mysteries by Thomas Mitchell, 1880.

"Riding over the sea on the back of the North Wind."  From The Fairy Ring by Kate Douglas Wiggin & Nora Archibald Smith, illustrated by Elizabeth MacKinstry, 1916.

"The heart-to-heart sentimental song shrinking," from The Sketch, 1911.

"Mr. Louis Wain's pet cat—existing only in his imagination."  From London Magazine, 1902.   See How to Be Your Own Cat.

From Judy, Or The London Serio-Comic Journal, 1882.

Here's a swarm of B's from an 1865 issue of Fun magazine.

INSTRUCTIONS: Click to see two other versions of this card.

Reblog if you, too, don't like doing things at regular times, like having odd meals with odd people in odd places, and like meeting strangers in little pubs who produce the philosopher's stone from their pockets.  From The Immaterial Murder Case by Julian Symons, 1945. 

Know how cats feel?  See How to Be Your Own Cat.  Our illustration is from Fliegende Blätter, 1934.   

From Jugend, 1922.

"Haunted by the ghosts of the books I haven't read.  Poor uneasy spirits, they walk and walk around me.  There's only one way to lay the ghost of a book, and that is to read it."  From The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley, 1919.