the Realist

[GEORGE THOMPSON]

        Paul Krassner published his autobiography a few years ago.  I read
bits of it when it came into the library here.  Pretty interesting.
He was blessed with the most phenomenally dirty mind -- always a joy
to have.  I remember he would reprint images from the popular press
-- advertisement, photos -- which I would have seen in their original
context without noticing, but just putting them in the context of the
Realist made them blossom with obscenity.

        The uproar over his fantasia on the death of JFK, mentioned by Larry
Horn, apparently had been forgotten within a few years.  A very
influential column in a library magazine reviewed the Realist and
recommended that libraries subscribe.  Whatever libraries did so
found in their first issue a fantasia in cartoon form -- a
double-page spread, as I remember -- on the death of Walt Disney
(1966).  The theme was "the master's repressive hand is lifted", and
the cartoon depicted all the Disney characters performing various
obscene acts, singly, in pair and groups, which I will refrain from
specifying.  This also caused an uproar.

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