His work for covers and pictures stories in Esquire and other magazines were controversial, original prints of which, and published copies, are held in a number of international museums.
Working with the magazine's creative consultant George Lois, who thought Fischer was one of the few photographers who understood his ideas, they devised what became amongst the most famous and provocative Esquire covers of the 1960s decade; Muhammad Ali as a martyred St Sebastian,[5][6] an image so popular that it was used as a protest poster,[7] and a montage of Andy Warhol drowning in a giant can of tomato soup.
In 1990 Steven Heller, senior art director of The New York Times, when asked what icons of American graphic design were worth preserving, declared; George Lois's Esquire covers from the mid-196os to the very early '70s are.
Most were collaborations with photographer Carl Fischer that took an average of three days to produce; they are considered among the most powerful propaganda imagery in any medium and certainly the most memorable magazine covers ever.
Among his other subjects were movie stars, artists and athletes,[13] but the covers were often politically charged, and included war criminal William Calley surrounded by Vietnamese children,[14] or during the peak of the civil rights movement, Sonny Liston as an angry black Santa Claus.
In 1963, when this was the sort of possibility that preyed on white men's minds everywhere, [Carl Fischer's and] George Lois's Christmasy cover was something more than an inducement for readers to buy Dad extra shaving soap.