By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 4, 2006; C01

Here's some good news for the Fourth of July: America now has a gutsy new monthly photo magazine called Shock, which dares to show us the stuff we really want to see -- a corpse rotting, an elephant sitting on a toilet, a dead kidnapper lying on a sidewalk with blood pouring out of his head.

All that -- plus pictures of Serena Williams's butt cleavage and Alicia Keys's chest hair and celebrity fashion tips from "Goddess Bunny, the fashion-savvy polio-stricken dancing transvestite" -- for only $1.99!

God bless America! Finally, a magazine for those of us who feel that Us Weekly is just a tad too highbrow. Shock is the kind of mag you'd get if the producers of the TV show "Fear Factor" bought National Geographic, then fired the staffers and brought in a new team headed by Larry the Cable Guy.

Shock is not for the squeamish. For example, it loves barfing-celebrity photos. The first issue had a picture of tennis player Andy Murray losing his lunch. The second issue had a picture of Keanu Reeves ralphing out of a car. I can't wait to see which celeb will toss his or her cookies in the third issue!

Shock doesn't coddle celebrities, like those suck-up magazines that allow the stars to choose who will photograph them. Shock has guts. If singer Keys wears a low-cut white dress that reveals a couple of chest hairs amid her lovely cleavage, Shock will not airbrush them. Oh no. Shock will circle those chest hairs with a yellow crayon so we're sure not to miss them. And then Shock will run that photo right next to the photos of five stars with mouth sores, which appear under the headline, "Hurt or Herpes?"

Your highbrow intellectual magazine reviewers will probably call Shock sleazy. But I'm here to say they're wrong. Shock is not schlock. It's the product of a high-class, big-time magazine publisher, Hachette Filipacchi Media -- the folks who put out Woman's Day and Car and Driver and Road & Track and Elle. This is a high-tone outfit, not some cheese-ball bottom feeder.

If you don't believe that Shock is classy, just look at the small print at the bottom of the masthead. It says "Shock is a trademark of Societe de Conception de Presse et D'Edition." That's French, mon ami . How classy can you get?

You probably assume the name Shock refers to that certain frisson you get when you see a photo of, say, one wrestler gouging out the eyeball of another. Well, you're wrong. Actually, Shock is an acronym. According to Hachette Filipacchi's news release, Shock stands for "Startling, Humorous, Outrageous, Controversial and Kommanding."

Aren't those Hachette Filipacchi people clever?

They've thought a lot about this magazine. You can tell by reading the next paragraph in that news release, which contains this quote from Shock's editor in chief, Mike Hammer: "Shock is filling a void for today's consumer whose visual appetite has grown but has not been effectively served by other media properties."

Hey, wait a minute. Did they say the editor in chief is named Mike Hammer ? Could he be the same Mike Hammer whose amazing exploits were chonicled in all those Mickey Spillane books? You remember him -- the hard-boiled private eye who would put a .45 slug right between the eyes of a busty, leggy, hot-blooded bottle-blonde if the situation called for it.

Actually, it turns out that the editor is not the same guy as the gumshoe. I checked it out: The gumshoe was a fictional character, and you have to be a real human to edit a magazine, even at Hachette Filipacchi.

But this new Mike Hammer is just as gutsy as the old one. He's not afraid to run a picture of a dead zebra rotting in an African drought. Or a dead mountain climber rotting in the snows of Mount Everest. Or a pile of chicken heads rotting in China.

And Hammer is a straight shooter. He doesn't mince words. When he runs a photo essay under the headline "Dead Man Rotting," he's not kidding. He gives you no fewer than 12 pictures of a dead guy rotting in the summer sun, complete with flies and maggots. (The magazine's motto, emblazoned on the cover: "WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD!")

But Shock isn't just gross. It also has heart-warming, life-affirming pictures, such as the shots of guys with only one leg playing soccer. And the pictures of a guy with no legs playing golf. There are also funny pictures of kids and dogs. In fact, in just two issues, Shock has already run photos of a dog smoking a cigarette and a baby smoking a cigarette. Awwww, that's so cute!

And it gives me warm, fuzzy feelings to know that Shock hired Sandie Crisp -- the "polio-stricken dancing transvestite" who became semi-famous by tap-dancing in an Internet video -- to give fashion advice to the stars.

But the best thing about Shock is that it doesn't publish too many words. In fact, no article is longer than a couple of paragraphs, which is perfect.

Don't get me wrong -- words have their place. But that place is in the New Yorker, where they keep the cartoons from banging into each other. The problem with words is that they lead to thoughts. And thinking makes my head hurt.

But my head feels fine after reading Shock. My stomach is a tad queasy, but I'm sure that'll pass.

I've only got one beef. On the cover of the first issue, there was a little photo of Jessica Simpson wearing a low-cut dress, alongside a cover line saying "Jessica Simpson Gets Down and Dirty Inside!" Well, that got my heart pumping! But when I looked inside, all I found was a photo of Jessica flipping somebody the bird.

On the cover of the second issue, there was a photo of actress Kristin Cavallari in a skimpy bikini with the cover line, "Kristin Cavallari Shows Us Some Skin." Well, that revved my motor! But when I looked inside, all I found were photos of Cavallari's face made up to look bloody for a movie she's filming.

Hey, Mike Hammer, is this some kind of bait-and-switch scam? You promise us steamy shots and then you leave us high and dry. Twice.

It's almost as if you think your readers are stupid.