What about the big news stories that were happening around that time: the Ruth Synder execution (January 12, 1928) complete with a tabloid photo secretly taken at the moment of her death in the electric chair, the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti murder trial (1920–1927) with protests on their behalf were held in every major capital in the Western World, the Leopold and Loeb murder trial (1924) made into a play in 1929, the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders (1928) involving a bloody ax and three dead children and the Bath School disaster (1927), the worst school mass-murder in US history (38 children and 6 adults killed, 58 injured). It must have seemed that an endless wave of criminality and depravity was engulfing the nation.

Isn't it simply the contrast between these carefree young flappers and the gruesome subjects they're reading about? I don't see deep social commentary as much as I see an illustrator's little wry observation.