You Are Now Entering Hell — Welcome!

This post is essentially the gallery of Art Young work which appeared in TCJ #273 a while back, though there are a couple of additions and subtractions. My essay from that issue is here.

The image at the top is from Art Young’s Inferno, published in 1934. Those below are from Hell Up to Date, published in 1892. (My apologies for the slightly wonky formatting throughout; my HTML is rudimentary.)

Mr. Dante of Italy

Inventor of Barb-Wire

Political Caricaturists

The Dentist’s Terrible Fate

frontispiece

Selfish Husband

Men Who Tell Fish Stories

The Editors

Mr. Satan’s Private Office

Society Bore

He Played the Cornet

Editors (at left) who take an awful satisfaction in rejcting manuscripts are piled in huge, red-hot iron waste-baskets. Those, also, who sin by swearing falsely to the circulation of their papers are here.

The image on the left is from Hell Up To Date; that on the right is from Through Hell With Hiprah Hunt, published in 1901.

The following are from Hiprah Hunt

Hunt With Devils

He Was Too Suspicious

A Sports Champ in Hell

Hunt Welcomed to Hell

spot illustration

Tax Dodgers

The Sheep

spot illustration

The Monster Tip System

Below are three scapegoat illustrations by Young:

From Hiprah Hunt

Corrupt men in public office, who combined and threw the blame of their guilt on one man are found in this region transformed into wild animals, for the amusement of Satan’s sharpshooting devils. Though they escaped public abuse on earth and prided themselves on not being “found out,” it is different in Hell. Here they are scapegoats themselves, and are hunted and shot by Demons armed with blunderbusses that fire five pounds of salt with one revolution of a wheel trigger.

From Young’s magazine Good Morning, c.1919.

From Art Young’s Inferno

You read in the newspapers that some institution or bureau of the government is about to be investigated. There will be startling disclosures — and the probing will be thorough. These investigations are announced merely to placate the public with promises of a cleaner and better Hell. If one of them proceeds at all, it goes cautiously lest the evidence incriminate the biggest and most respectable Devils of the Interno, and (terrible thought) end in ruining Hell. Sometimes out of the sensational findings, however, there emerges a scapegoat or two, and the public is satisfied.

The following sources are indicated where known.

Next War, c.1919

Compulsory Religion, The Masses 1912

This World of Creepers, Life 1907

A Slice of the City, c.1920s?

The Joke Is On You, Baby, Daily Call 1917

Postcards From Hell, Good Morning, 1919

Inferiority Complex, Sat. Eve. Post, late 1920s

Superiority Complex, Sat. Eve. Post, late 1920s

Young on the stock exchange; first from Hell Up to Date in 1892:

Then from Art Young’s Inferno in 1934

During my first exploration forty years ago, I saw the pits where the Stock Exchange gamblers were punished. As has been pointed out before, the old Inferno showed no favoritism in its treatment of sinners. A few petty gamblers were then punished, but of more consequence were those who gambled on a large scale. The big stock speculators were hurled into suffocating pits where their writhings and shoutings made a tumult that cleft the air with continuous cursings against such a puritanical Hell. Today, not far from the site of these ancient pits is the Hell Stock Exchange and streets where brokerage firms operate. Big gambling is established and approved by the pillars of political and industrial Hell. Only those laws against petty offenders, like those against petty thievery, are now enforced.

And here are illustrations from the Inferno.