Old Time Photo Manipulation

From Wired:

For over 150 years, industrious manipulators have tampered with photos and their meaning, like the Abe Lincoln composite at right which places the president’s head on Southern politician John Calhoun’s body. Early 20th century photo studios preferred photomontage – the production of images by physically cutting and joining combined photos – to create the For tall-tale postcards fictions.
“I think of them as a gag, and I think everyone else did too,” says Jim Linderman, a writer, popular culture historian and collector who edits the printed ephemera blogs Dull Tool Dim Bulb and Vintage Sleaze. “I often wonder if the fellows who sent home *this is how big the fish are here* were really fishing at all.”
Tall-tale postcards are also known as “Exaggerations” in collecting circles. According to Linderman, the postcards of crafty photographers such as Oscar Erickson, M.W. Bailey, Edward H. Mitchell, William H. Martin and the well-known Alfred Stanley Johnson Jr. include semi-realistic photos as well as heavy-handed examples which “could never fool the eye.”

People have always had a slightly odd sense of humor.