Your Unauthorized Guide to the Golden Age of National Lampoon Magazine
(1970-1975)

June 1971, Vol. 1, No. 15 / Religion for Fun and Prophet

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“COVER: Our thanks and a tip of the NatLamp Weejun goes this month to Edward Sorel for his vivid portrait of Andrei Gromyko slinging his views from Aix to Trenton, New Jersey. Mr. Sorel has been in the satire biz longer than he cares to mention, has a delightful new book out written by the charming Mrs. Sorel and entitled Word People, and by the time he reads this will probably still not have received his pitiful check. Just sent out in the mail this morning, Ed. Honest.”

Contents

Letter From the Editor, By Doug Kenney
A little parable about a bearded “hippie” dude who got busted by the Establishment—but not the one you’re probably thinking of

Letters, Uncredited; Illustration by Marvin Mattleson

Horrorscope, Uncredited (Doug Kenney); Illustration by Marvin Mattleson
Celebrities’ futures revealed using fortune cookies

News of the Month, Uncredited (Henry Beard); Illustration by Marvin Mattleson
Proposal to use the SST for public transportation in order to get government funding; Several rumors; The creed of the United States Marine; Some new ethnic organizations seeking recognition, including a group composed of 4 million Germans who claim to have plotted together to assassinate Hitler; Hope for phones having trouble achieving dial tone

Mrs. Agnew’s Diary, Uncredited (Doug Kenney); Illustration by Marvin Mattleson
Judy gives us a daft peek at Hank Kissinger’s creepy subterrainean command center

The Judaic-Judaic Tradition, Cartoons by Arnold Roth
A look at the old-time religion as seen through rosen-colored glasses”

Foto Funnies, Uncredited (features Doug Kenney); Illustration by Marvin Mattleson
A woman who reads the Whole Earth Catalog shows guy (played by Kenney) she knows how to use it

Utopia Four Comics, By Sean Kelly; Art by Joe Orlando, Lettering by John Costanza
Marshall McLuhan, Kate Millet, Charles Reich, and Buckminster Fuller, as a team of super heroes, utterly fail to quell a ghetto riot

Lamentations II, By Tony Hendra
Supposedly a lost book of the Bible, recently unearthed, which casts the rest of the Bible in rather dubious light

Meanwhile, Back at Metropolis, By Michael O’Donoghue; Illustrated by Wayne Boring
A one-page Superman gag

New Sacrileges, By Bob Aaronson; Illustrated by Marvin Mattleson, Medoff, and others uncredited
An illustrated list of topical ideas bound to offend nearly everyone

NatLamp’s Inferno, By Rick Meyerowitz
An illustrated panorama (accompanied by verse) depicting the just desserts awaiting the famous and the infamous in Hell

The Polaroid Print of Dorian Gray, By Michael O’Donoghue; Illustration by Roy Carruthers
A retelling of the Oscar Wilde classic, set in the present, in which the portrait manifests the moral consequences of Dorian’s environmental abuse

Big Blessings Bulletin, By Henry Beard and George W. S. Trow
Christ’s newsletter for His followers with news about fundraising efforts, recent miracles, an advice column by Mary, and ads for books of parables, rummage sales, and even a summer camp for kids, directed by Simon Peter 

The Prophet, By John Weidman
An irreverent parody of the Kalhil Jibran book in which the prophet is a sham artist

Know Your ESP IQ, By John Boni; Illustration by Babi Jery
A parody of an intelligence test with questions such as “How did you score on this test?”

Foto Funnies, Uncredited
Strange bodily sounds gag

Holyland, By Gahan Willson
An incredibly crass amusement park based on the Bible

Magic Made E-Z, By John Weidman
A magic book showing how to do “miraculous” tricks such as “All You Can Eat,” “The Bewitched Bush,” “An Astonishing Stroll,” and “Haunted Handwriting”

Tree Story, By Steve Kaplan and Peter Ivers; Illustration by Ed Soyka
Short story about a young man who tries to “get back to nature” and unwittingly ingests some hallucinigens

I Dreamed I Was There in Overdose Heaven, By Sean Kelly; Tryptych by Doug and Judy Aleefer
A song about Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin spending their eternal lives doing the drugs that killed them

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