Hara‑Kiri n°104 (Mai 1970) is a defining example of the magazine’s early‑70s shift toward shock absurdism, using theatrical gore, slapstick props, and deliberately chaotic visuals to parody pseudo‑scientific popular culture. This issue belongs to a short run of covers mocking “educational” magazine series that claimed to explain the human body in oversimplified or sensationalist ways.

The cover shows a man leaning over a table piled with raw meat and wiring, staged to resemble a grotesque imitation of a “brain.” His frenzied expression is exaggerated for comedic effect. The messy table setup is intentionally artificial — a parody of TV science demonstrations and magazine guides that promised to reveal “the secrets of the human body,” often with dubious accuracy.

The headline reinforces the joke:

“Les merveilles de notre corps — LE CERVEAU”(“The wonders of our body — THE BRAIN”)

Rather than teaching anything, the image mocks how ridiculous popular science could look when misunderstood, misrepresented, or sensationalised. Hara‑Kiri turns that naïve fascination into chaotic slapstick.