Above is a detail from a cartoon published in The Realist in 1967. [Mature viewers not offended by moderately graphic sexual and scatological satire can click here to see the whole thing.] I'll never forget how happy it made to see this cartoon for the first time. I was seventeen then -- I saw it in the dorm room of a fellow student at my prep school who had a staggering collection of underground publications, including a complete run of Paul Krassner's The Realist. I can't believe the school authorities knew how much subversive literature he had stowed away in his room -- or how widely it was corrupting the imaginations of his fellow students. The Realist was truly shocking stuff in 1967.
The image made me happy not because I hated the classic Disney cartoons and characters -- but because I loved them. I loved them too much, and unconsciously. They were embedded in my psyche on deeper levels than I ever suspected. To see them dragged unwillingly into the light of an adult consciousness, mocked and defiled, sexualized, allowed me to engage them as an adult -- to try and assess how they had affected me. And it allowed me to appreciate them as great works of art -- not just as cultural baggage. That appreciation has only grown over time.
Transgressive, subversive culture works in counter-intuitive ways. By breaking spells, it can lead to deeper realms of magic and enchantment . . . which themselves will one day have to be transgressed and subverted.
Issues of The Realist are being archived on the web now -- you can peruse them here.