Alive and Well!

This issue marks HUSTLER’s 42nd anniversary of continuous publication—something of a miracle, because in the beginning, virtually nobody thought we could be successful against the titans of the industry. And by the late ’70s, nobody thought we could survive the oppression unleashed by publishing and political prudes offended by HUSTLER’s naked truth—whether of the human body or the body politic.

I have been sued countless times, and I have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for publishing “obscenity.” Jerry Falwell, leader of the Moral Majority, sued me for libel for a HUSTLER parody and lost in a unanimous 1988 Supreme Court decision that forever validated our First Amendment rights to free speech. Letting Falwell get away with his claim could have wiped out any form of satire, from cartoons to stand up comics’ routines that lampoon obvious political targets and ego-inflated hypocrites.