The present issue of the Lampoon appears to be in mourning for the passing of its Dartmouth counterpart, the Jackolantern.

Even the works of the usually inimitable Updike have ceased to shine, and only glimmer fitfully through the morose aura which surrounds the magazine. This is probably the result of understandable fatigue, since this joker has been responsible for the bulk of the magazine's readable contents over a period of nearly two years.

The cover is a shocker: a much-worse-than-usual product of poor idea, poor draftsmanship and poor choice of colors. An attempt to capture the fall atmosphere, it succeeds only in being drab.

Art work between the covers is not far above this level. With the exception of a clever dig at the Gen. Ed. Program's humanities courses, drawn by E. Wentworth, the cartoons are utterly witless. Two vignettes, one of a Roman chariot and one of a spotted cat, are the only really amusing drawings in the issue. The cat is Updike's.

Updike's, too, is a bit of prose entitled "The Fading of the Fad." It is not good. Faddism is too old a topic to survive any but the best treatment. It does not receive it.

Other second-hand ideas which appear in this issue include the foibles of television and 3-D movies, the "in 25 words or less" contest, the detective story, the mysterious mixup, and the shock ending in which someone suddenly discovers that an imaginary situation has become real. Indeed, the Lampoon is present testimony to the theory that all the stories ever written have been derived from a set of 35 basic plots.

Four poems by Updike and Henry S. Zeigler offer the only contrast to the poor quality of the other writing. Zeigler's verse has spark, both in "Tour de Force" and in a shorter piece about some unidentified "little round men." Updike's "Footnotes to the Future" is a bit of delicate whimsey, and "This Isn't a Chain I'm Smoking" is delightful--especially in comparison with the rest of the issue. Updike's versification and phraseology are light and refreshing: "Milady I like your diminutive lips. . . .I like your wee fingers and miniscule hips. . . ." Unfortunately his style here only accentuates the paucity of wit in his other contributions. Updike is the Lampoon's only real talent. Too bad they have quenched his fire, or burned it out. Or maybe this was just a bad month.