Rather than equivocate as Rolling Stone magazine did in their classic “Perception/Reality” campaign, The Village Voice had always cheekily confirmed their reputedly radical content and audience in their advertising.

We were asked by renegade agency Mad Dogs & Englishmen to launch an outdoor campaign announcing that The Voice would become freely available on the island of Manhattan. Rather than addressing the glee among the ‘zine’s faithful, we instead imagined widespread alarm among some parents that their impressionable cherubs could get their antiseptic paws on such a smutty periodical.

Stark black and white photography by Alex Hayden underscores the sardonic absurdity.