ASME's Top 40 Best Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years:

April 1968

The controversial April 1968 magazine cover depicting Muhammad Ali impaled by six arrows appeared on the heels of his refusal to be inducted into the U.S. Army because of his religious beliefs. (Ali, convicted violating the Selective Service Act, was barred from the ring and stripped of his title.) The cover, the second of three Esquire covers defending Ali, shows the boxer martyred as St. Sebastian, a patron saint of athletes and one who was shot with arrows for his steadfast religious beliefs. This was one of the covers designed by George Lois, Esquires Art Director during the 1960s.

Esquire magazine, coverdesign by cover-design-godfather George Lois