Is Peter Saul’s Gross-Out Painting Political?

At some point in the depths of my early teens, I was permanently scarred by Mad Magazine. The comic that did the job, a charming little number by Tom Bunk called The Zit, begins with a teenager popping his pimple in the bathroom. As pus shoots onto the mirror, he grins orgasmically. But then, more and more stuff starts to flow out of the little hole in his face— blood, guts, an eyeball, a lung. By the final panel, his innards have flooded the whole room, leaving behind an empty sac of skin