ORIGINAL BLACK AND WHITE CENTER ILLUSTRATION FOR THE REALIST # 74

Violin prodigy and counterculture pioneer Paul Krassner began publishing his left leaning free thought magazine The Realist in the late 50’s. It was loaded with so much social wit and sarcasm that the FBI followed its articles and Krassner’s public appearances with much interest. In 1967, about a year after Walt Disney’s death, Krassners commisoned EC comics and MAD Magazine (to which Krassner had contributed before) artist Wally Wood to do an illustration that would show what all the Disney characters would be doing now that their creator was no longer around to control them. The inside poster was not signed by the late Wood and he has often avoided the topic in interviews. Not so with Krassner. Here is a section of an article he wrote for the 18 Aug 2005 Huffington Post:

After Walt Disney died, there was a rumor that his body had been frozen, but actually it was cremated. Somehow I had expected Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and the whole gang to attend the funeral, with Goofy delivering the eulogy and the Seven Dwarfs serving as pallbearers. Disney’s death occurred a few years after *Time* magazine’s famous “God Is Dead” cover, and it occurred to me that Disney had served as Intelligent Designer to that whole stable of imaginary characters now mourning in a state of suspended animation.

Disney had been *their* Creator, and he had repressed all their baser instincts, but now that he had departed, they could finally shed their cumulative inhibitions and participate together in an unspeakable Roman binge, to signify the crumbling of an empire. I contacted Wally Wood–who had illustrated the first piece I sold to *Mad* magazine–“If Comic Strip Characters Answered Those Little Ads in the Back of Comic Books”–and, without mentioning any specific details, I told him my general notion of a memorial orgy at Disneyland to be published in *The Realist.* He accepted the assignment and presented me with a magnificently degenerate montage.

Pluto was pissing on a portrait of Mickey Mouse, while the real, bedraggled Mickey was shooting up heroin with a hypodermic needle. His nephews were jerking off as they watched Goofy fucking Minnie Mouse on a combination bed and cash register. The beams shining out from the Magic Castle were actually dollar signs. Dumbo the elephant was simultaneously flying and shitting on an infuriated Donald Duck. Huey, Dewey and Louie were staring at Daisy Duck’s asshole as she watched the Seven Dwarfs groping Snow White. The Prince was snatching a peek at Cinderella’s snatch while trying a glass slipper on her foot. The Three Little Pigs were humping each other in a daisy chain. Jiminy Cricket leered as Tinker Bell did a striptease and Pinocchio’s nose got longer.

Disney did not pursue a law suit against Krassner and felt any action would only draw more attention to an image located in the center of a relatively obscure newsletter type magazine that would interest only the Berkley types. They did however sue, and settle out of court, 60’s psychedelic poster publisher Sam Ridge, who took the image and mass produced it. While in today’s jaded Sodom and Gomorrah culture images of Ariel the Little Mermaid and Belle the Beauty can be found in any sexual situation imaginable or unimaginable this poster was printed in 1967 and prior to it Disney was a sacred institution, beyond reproach. Wood did do adult material and some of that may appear here later as I am trying to do a good article on the man and his tragic life, filled with career struggle, broken marriages, paranoia , alcoholism, kidney failure and ultimately suicide. But damn! could he ever draw!

Below is a link to the entire issue with the poster. The articles and letters are actually very good and the sarcasm is of a fairly high level. I may check out more of this curious publication that, until now, I had heard of but had never actually seen.

LINK TO ONLINE REPRINT OF THE REALIST # 74

This entry was posted on Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 11:59 am and is filed under Art-Album Covers-Posters . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.