The Realist

(from Wikipedia) The Realist, edited and published by Paul Krassner [who is featured in this week's LA WEEKLY], was a pioneering magazine in the American countercultural press of the mid-20th century. Although The Realist is often regarded as a major milestone in the underground press, it was a nationally-distributed newsstand publication as early as 1959. The Realist was the first satirical magazine to publish conspiracy theories.

First published in the spring of 1958 in New York City in the offices of Mad Magazine,[1] The Realist appeared on a fairly regular schedule during the 1960s and then on an irregular schedule after the early 1970s. It was revived as a much smaller newsletter during the mid-1980s when material from the magazine was collected in The Best of the Realist: The 60's Most Outrageously Irreverent Magazine (Running Press, 1985). The final issue of The Realist was #146 (Spring 2001).

The Realist provided a format for extreme satire in its articles, cartoons, and Krassner's editorials, but it also carried more serious material in articles and interviews. Krassner leaned towards hoaxes, such as his "The Parts Left Out of the Kennedy Book", an outrageous parody of William Manchester's The Death of a President. Krassner's article confused some readers who accepted it as legitimate. The magazine was the first to provide a forum for conspiracy researcher Mae Brussell and also published political commentary from Norman Mailer, Ken Kesey, and Joseph Heller.