Hara‑Kiri n°253 (Octobre 1982) is a classic example of the magazine’s early‑80s approach: economic satire delivered through theatrical, exaggerated visual humour. This issue targets France’s spiralling inflation of the early 1980s and the government’s attempts to control consumer prices — a widely discussed national concern at the time.

The cover features a woman dressed in a colourful striped corset, styled with exaggerated makeup and a comic, bewildered facial expression. The satirical metaphor is clear: as inflation rises, the “corset” of controlled pricing bursts open. The imagery is intentionally over‑the‑top, using theatrical nudity as a visual joke rather than as erotic content — a typical Hara‑Kiri method to ridicule economic rhetoric.

Main headline:Liberté des prix — L’inflation dégrafe son corset(“Price liberalisation — Inflation unfastens its corset”)The pun mocks the government’s deregulation of prices in 1982, implying that once controls loosen, the situation bursts out of control.