I was an early subscriber to National Lampoon when it came out in 1970. It had many of my favorite artists from the science fiction world — Vaughn Bodé and Gahan Wilson among them. Every issue had a theme, and #5 was Paranoia, with a great Wilson cover. But that's not what interests me today. No. The centerfold of this issue was a Paranoid's Map of The World, complete with every hateful stereotype imaginable, made howlingly funny in its democratic fashion of tarring the whole world with this brush.
However, besides people as a source of paranoid fantasy, there was nature, and for that matter, the products people make. You will notice in this detail blown up from the map, one of the dangers from China is poisoned toys. Paranoia? Or prescience?
This very same map shows melting polar ice caps and mideast jihadists. No. This was not a paranoid fantasy. It was National Lampoon's secret message to the future, coded, as Nostradamus had to do because no one would believe it.
Comments