Vietnam Era Anti Authoritarian Satire: "Horseshit: The Offensive Review," Created by Former Servicemen Thomas and Robert Dunker, 1965 to 1970

Horseshit: The Offensive Review

Periodical

Dunker, Thomas W., and Robert M. Dunker. Horseshit: The Offensive Review, three issues from the four issue run, 1965 to 1970, documenting an independent California magazine in which two former servicemen directed graphic satire, obscenity, sexual humor, and anti authoritarian writing against military culture, organized religion, political institutions, and conventional morality during the escalation of the Vietnam War. Thomas Dunker, who had been drafted into the Army after leaving the seminary, supplied the writing, while his brother Robert, a former Marine, supplied the drawings. Their first issue appeared in 1965, before American troop strength in Vietnam expanded from roughly 23,000 advisers and personnel at the end of 1964 to more than 184,000 by the end of 1965, and its cover established the magazine's anti military position with a soldier carrying a rifle and holding a dead infant beneath the command “ATTACK!” Using dark humor, surreal imagery, and aggressive social critique to test the limits of free expression and anti establishment satire during a period of political and cultural upheaval in the United States, Horseshit emerged as one of the more confrontational expressions of the 1960s underground press.
Dunker, Thomas W., and Robert M. Dunker. Horseshit: The Offensive Review. Hermosa Beach, California: Gauntlet Press / Scum Publishing Company, 1965 to 1970. Three issues, Nos. 1, 2, and 4, from a four issue run, lacking No. 3. Approximately 11 x 8.5 inches, illustrated wrappers, extensively illustrated in black and white.
[1] No. 1. Hermosa Beach: Gauntlet Press, 1965. 44 pp. Cover depicts an armed American soldier holding a dead infant beneath the caption “ATTACK!” The opening statement identifies Bob and Tom Dunker as brothers seeking a magazine combining “strong, fearless, humorous drawings with witty, intelligent, outspoken writing,” and defines its editorial independence in the declaration, “Horseshit doesn't have this problem. It is the work of men, not the product of a committee.” Contents move between sexual satire, fiction, poetry, political cartoons, and attacks on military culture.
[2] No. 2. Hermosa Beach: Scum Publishing Company, 1967. 48 pp. By the second issue the Dunkers had replaced the Gauntlet Press imprint with Scum Publishing Company and sharpened the magazine's attacks on political and religious authority. “CANONIZE JFK NOW” satirizes the post assassination elevation of John F. Kennedy into a national martyr, while “CUNT IS A CHRISTIAN WORD” combines sexual vocabulary with an attack on Christian doctrine and institutional religion.
[3] No. 4. Hermosa Beach: Scum Publishing Company, copyright 1970. 56 pp. The final number retains the magazine's large format and dense alternation of prose, cartoons, political imagery, and sexual material. The recurring extended middle finger emblem appears prominently, while the contents continue the Dunkers' attacks on institutional authority and conventional standards of propriety.
Horseshit emerged from a California underground print culture in which control of production and distribution allowed small publishers to circulate material excluded from conventional magazines, but the Dunkers' project remained unusually personal in both authorship and visual language. Robert later recalled that printers, typesetters, and distributors became increasingly difficult to secure, practical obstacles consistent with a publication whose profanity, explicit sexual imagery, attacks on Christianity, and anti military politics restricted ordinary commercial channels. The conflict became concrete in Berkeley in 1968, when bookseller Moe Moskowitz was arrested in an obscenity case involving Horseshit along with Zap, Snatch, and Valerie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto, placing the magazine within the legal disputes surrounding the sale of underground publications during the period. Overall very good condition, with staples in tact and text legible.

Item #23769

Price: $385.00