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Dec 23, 2016 Web Exclusive By Cody Ray Shafer

Throughout the latter part of the twentieth century’s, Paul Krassner’s satirical magazine The Realist published some of the most lauded and controversial cartoons, lampooning every aspect of American culture. Fantagraphics has put together a collection of those cartoons, featuring the work of notable pioneering alt-comic artists like Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, S. Clay Wilson, Jay Lynch, and more.

Krassner contributed the book’s introduction, detailing the magazines rise and decline, and defending the publication’s devotion to sacrilege as America’s answer to Charlie Hebdo. The Realist Cartoons is a noteworthy entry into the history of underground comics and political satire, from a time when political correctness was a conservative burden worth skewering. Another way to put it, it helps us remember a time when the political and cultural climate was vulnerable to parody, instead of the joke itself. (www.fantagraphics.com)

Author rating: 6/10