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93-399: FutureQuake was a British small press comic book founded by Arthur Wyatt , and later edited by Richmond Clements, David Evans and Owen Watts. Dedicated to showcasing work by new writers and artists, they published mostly self-contained comic stories, generally of 5 pages or less and usually of a sci-fi/fantasy/horror bent. Under their FutureQuake Press imprint ( FQP ) they also published

186-424: A non-disclosure agreement ); directly threatening national security; or causing or potentially causing an imminent emergency (the " clear and present danger " standard) to be ordered stopped or otherwise suppressed, and then usually only the particular offending article or articles in question will be banned, while the newspaper itself is allowed to continue operating and can continue publishing other articles. In

279-477: A Dirty Old Man, ran in NOLA Express , and Francisco McBride's illustration for the story "The Fuck Machine" was considered sexist, pornographic, and created an uproar. All of this controversy helped to increase the readership and bring attention to the political causes that editors Fife and Head supported. Many of the papers faced official harassment on a regular basis; local police repeatedly raided and busted up

372-609: A large and active underground press that printed over 2 million newspapers a month; the leading titles were Combat , Libération , Défense de la France , and Le Franc-Tireur . Each paper was the organ of a separate resistance network, and funds were provided from Allied headquarters in London and distributed to the different papers by resistance leader Jean Moulin . Allied prisoners of war (POWs) published an underground newspaper called POW WOW . In Eastern Europe , also since approximately 1940, underground publications were known by

465-424: A mail order service, and a news sheet, lasting in various forms until 1990. Artists associated with this scene included Eddie Campbell , Phil Elliott , Glenn Dakin , Paul Grist , Ed Hillyer , Woodrow Phoenix , Rian Hughes , Bob Lynch , Ed Pinsent , and the teenage Warren Ellis . Campbell claims he persuaded his fellow artists to call their publications "small press comics" rather than "fanzines", after seeing

558-635: A news/reviews magazine specifically created to educate and promote small press and self-published comics to the wider public. It has been described as a 'vital read' by SFX magazine and "a must-have" by Ain't It Cool News. Other titles include Seven Sentinels and the Fusion anthology. Accent UK , a collective headed by Dave West ( Deva Comics ) and Colin Mathieson ( M56 Comics ), was formed in 2002 and produced themed US-format anthologies featuring contributions from dozens of UK independent creators. In addition to

651-423: A number go on to mainstream comics, including D'Israeli and Duncan Fegredo . In 1987 Jamie Hewlett , Philip Bond and Alan Martin (then students at from Northbrook College , Worthing ) produced two issues of a small press comic called Atomtan . This caught the attention of Brett Ewins , who invited them to contribute to his new comics magazine, Deadline , which began in 1988. Hewlett and Martin created

744-515: A panel of reviewers, often cartoonists themselves, who were encouraged to write critical reviews of significant length. It also featured reproductions of the comics under review. Zum! continues as a website run by Paul Schroeder. Caption , a zine-cum- APA devoted to small press comics edited by Jenni Scott, ran from 1992 to 1998, and spawned the long-running Caption small press comics convention, held annually in Oxford from 1992 to 2017. The 1990s saw

837-476: A platform to the socially impotent and mirrored the changing way of life in the UK underground . In London , Barry Miles , John Hopkins , and others produced International Times from October 1966 which, following legal threats from The Times newspaper was renamed IT . Richard Neville arrived in London from Australia, where he had edited Oz (1963 to 1969). He launched a British version (1967 to 1973), which

930-453: A publication with a print run, regardless of its commercial potential. Within the British comics fandom of the 1970s and early 1980s there were many zines about comics, mainly concentrating on American superhero titles. Since high-street retailers of comics were scarce, these zines ran mail order services and relied on the postal service for distribution. The first and most famous of these

1023-519: A rented or borrowed IBM Selectric typewriter to be pasted-up by hand. As one observer commented with only slight hyperbole, students were financing the publication of these papers out of their lunch money. In mid-1966, the cooperative Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) was formed at the instigation of Walter Bowart , the publisher of another early paper, the East Village Other . The UPS allowed member papers to freely reprint content from any of

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1116-540: A review zine featuring reviews in comic strip form by Lee Kennedy and others, and an A8-sized anthology, Itsy Bitsy . Andrew Moreton set up Massive, a small press distributor, in 1992, and also published a zine, The Comics Cut Quarterly . Psychopia , was a zine and distributor set up by cartoonist B. Patson in 1994, which still exists online. Other cartoonists sold their work through classified ads in Comics International magazine. Notable self-published comics of

1209-451: A similar vein, John Berger , Lee Marrs , and others co-founded Alternative Features Service , Inc. in 1970 to supply the underground and college press, as well as independent radio stations, with syndicated press materials that especially highlighted the creation of alternative institutions, such as free clinics , people's banks , free universities , and alternative housing . By 1973, many underground papers had folded, at which point

1302-411: A symbiotic co-operation with the underground press. The underground press publicised these bands and this made it possible for them to tour and get record deals. The band members travelled around spreading the ethos and the demand for underground newspapers and magazines grew and flourished for a while. Neville published an account of the counterculture called Play Power , in which he described most of

1395-475: A weekly packet of articles and features mailed to subscribing papers around the country; HIPS reported 60 subscribing papers. The GI underground press within the U.S. military produced over four hundred titles during the Vietnam War, some produced by antiwar GI Coffeehouses , and many of them small, crudely produced, low-circulation mimeographed "zines" written by GIs or recently discharged veterans opposed to

1488-490: A wider range. In recent times small press titles have sold in larger bookstores such as Borders and Foyles in London . The traditional format has been a photocopied and stapled booklet, usually at A5 size. This is similar to American minicomics , although other sizes are known. Some creators continue to produce publications in this style, emphasizing the hand-made aspect and often decorating each copy by hand. In recent years

1581-468: Is the adult humour comic Viz , first published in Newcastle in 1979. It grew out of the punk fanzine scene, and went on to successful newsstand publication, continuing to the present day. The first flowering of British small press comics centered on Fast Fiction , which began as a stall run by Paul Gravett at the bi-monthly Westminster Comic Mart in London in 1981. It later developed into an anthology,

1674-441: Is tied up with the underground press of the 1960s, with publications such as Oz and International Times . The British underground comix scene was led by Nasty Tales and Knockabout Comics of the 1970s, as well as the popularization of Punk zines in the late 1970s. The latter had a larger audience from cheap and accessible photocopying . This dramatic lowering of technological barriers to entry meant anyone could produce

1767-543: Is usually one or more mail order service, commonly known as a "distro", operating in the UK. These will hold a wide range of titles and take a cut of the cover price. The two main active distros are Samu and SmallZone . They are also sold at conventions and festivals, with small groups of like-minded creators often sharing a table at a reduced rate. Specialist small press events included CAPTION in Oxford (produced from 1992 to 2017), and

1860-591: The San Francisco Oracle . John Wilcock , a founder of the Underground Press Syndicate, wrote about the Oracle : "Its creators are using color the way Lautrec must once have experimented with lithography – testing the resources of the medium to the utmost and producing what almost any experienced newspaperman would tell you was impossible... it is a creative dynamo whose influence will undoubtedly change

1953-542: The Cold War . In Western Europe, a century after the invention of the printing press, a widespread underground press emerged in the mid-16th century with the clandestine circulation of Calvinist books and broadsides, many of them printed in Geneva, which were secretly smuggled into other nations where the carriers who distributed such literature might face imprisonment, torture or death. Both Protestant and Catholic nations fought

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2046-708: The Japanese Manga -influenced anthology Manga Quake and the horror comic Something Wicked . FQP also published other comics, and took over Dog breath , the Strontium Dog fanzine and Zarjaz , the general 2000 AD fanzine. 39 issues of FutureQuake were published until publication went on hiatus following the death of David Evans in May 2021. FutureQuake played host to a wide range of contributors, including first time writers and artists, up-and-coming small press personalities and established creators. Issues featured

2139-489: The Ladbroke Grove area of London ; Ink , which was more overtly political; and Gandalf's Garden which espoused the mystic path. The flaunting of sexuality within the underground press provoked prosecution. IT was taken to court for publishing small ads for homosexuals ; despite the 1967 legalisation of homosexuality between consenting adults in private, importuning remained subject to prosecution. Publication of

2232-539: The Oz "School Kids" issue brought charges against the three Oz editors, who were convicted and given jail sentences. This was the first time the Obscene Publications Act 1959 was combined with a moral conspiracy charge. The convictions were, however, overturned on appeal. Police harassment of the British underground, in general, became commonplace, to the point that in 1967 the police seemed to focus in particular on

2325-870: The Rational Observer at American University in Washington, D.C. The FBI also ran the Pacific International News Service in San Francisco, the Chicago Midwest News, and the New York Press Service. Many of these organizations consisted of little more than a post office box and a letterhead, designed to enable the FBI to receive exchange copies of underground press publications and send undercover observers to underground press gatherings. By

2418-713: The Scar Comics banner. In 2006 the first Scar Comics graphic novel, Falling Sky by Ben Dickson, won "Best Indie Surprise" on Ain't It Cool News . Another activist for British independent comics is writer/artist Barry Renshaw. Founding the Engine Comics imprint in 2000, Renshaw wrote and published the Rough Guide to Self Publishing , which is now in its fourth edition (2007) and was described as 'essential purchase for budding self-publishers' by industry paper Comics International . In 2004, Engine Comics launched Redeye Magazine ,

2511-510: The UK Web & Mini Comix Thing in London (produced from 2004 to 2010). Creators will often make international links to these forms of distribution in other countries and vice versa. Distribution into comic book stores via traditional distributors (such as Diamond ) is rare. Stores will often stock titles by local creators though some, notably Gosh! in London and Page 45 in Nottingham , stock

2604-632: The "mimeo revolution" by protest and freedom-of-speech poets during the 1960s, NOLA Express was also a member of the Committee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers (COSMEP). These two affiliations with organizations that were often at cross-purposes made NOLA Express one of the most radical and controversial publications of the counterculture movement. Part of the controversy about NOLA Express included graphic photographs and illustrations of which many even in today's society would be banned as pornographic. Charles Bukowski 's syndicated column, Notes of

2697-411: The 1950s and had excess capacity on their offset web presses, which could be negotiated for at bargain rates. Most papers operated on a shoestring budget, pasting up camera-ready copy on layout sheets on the editor's kitchen table, with labor performed by unpaid, non-union volunteers. Typesetting costs, which at the time were wiping out many established big city papers, were avoided by typing up copy on

2790-678: The 1950s, such as the Village Voice and Paul Krassner 's satirical paper The Realist . Arguably, the first underground newspaper of the 1960s was the Los Angeles Free Press , founded in 1964 and first published under that name in 1965. According to Louis Menand , writing in The New Yorker , the underground press movement in the United States was "one of the most spontaneous and aggressive growths in publishing history." During

2883-478: The 90s included Paul Grist 's Kane , Gary Spencer Millidge 's Strangehaven , Sleaze Castle by Dave McKinnon and Terry Wiley, and Strange Weather Lately by Metaphrog , all of which received widespread distribution through Diamond Comic Distributors . From 2000 until 2011 Metaphrog went on to produce the full-colour Louis series of graphic novels which received mainstream media attention and book shop distribution. Recent creators to have launched through

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2976-509: The BugPowder distribution service, which sold any British small press comics that cared to be listed as well as importing selected books from the US and Europe. TRS was discontinued in 1998, before being revived as TRS2 by Andrew Luke. BugPowder closed as a distributor in 2000, but the BugPowder blog continued to spotlight British small press activity, including the now-online TRS2 . Slab-O-Concrete

3069-502: The New Left of the mid-sixties was trying to develop." Leamer, in his 1972 book The Paper Revolutionaries , called The Rag "one of the few legendary undergrounds". Gilbert Shelton 's legendary Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic strip began in The Rag , and thanks in part to UPS, was republished all over the world. Probably the most graphically innovative of the underground papers was

3162-427: The U.S. the term "underground newspaper" generally refers to an independent (and typically smaller) newspaper focusing on unpopular themes or counterculture issues. Typically, these tend to be politically to the left or far left. More narrowly, in the U.S. the term "underground newspaper" most often refers to publications of the period 1965–1973, when a sort of boom or craze for local tabloid underground newspapers swept

3255-484: The US, Australia, and Europe. Slab-O-Concrete developed into a full-scale publisher, repackaging small press comics for the bookshop market and originating new work. It avoided the direct market of comic shops and made connections with underground publishers, zinesters, indie record labels, and other subcultural scenes. Slab-O-Concrete ended due to cash flow issues in 2001. Other groups included Dachshund, run by Andy, aka Andy Konky Kru, which published Graphic Reviews ,

3348-789: The Underground Press Syndicate acknowledged the passing of the undergrounds and renamed itself the Alternative Press Syndicate (APS). After a few years, APS also foundered, to be supplanted in 1978 by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies . One of the most notorious underground newspapers to join UPS and rally activists, poets, and artists by giving them an uncensored voice, was the NOLA Express in New Orleans. Started by Robert Head and Darlene Fife as part of political protests and extending

3441-662: The United States and Canada in North America, and the United Kingdom and other western nations. It can also refer to the newspapers produced independently in repressive regimes. In German occupied Europe , for example, a thriving underground press operated, usually in association with the Resistance . Other notable examples include the samizdat and bibuła , which operated in the Soviet Union and Poland respectively, during

3534-484: The United States, the term underground did not mean illegal as it did in many other countries. The First Amendment and various court decisions (e.g. Near v. Minnesota ) give very broad rights to anyone to publish a newspaper or other publication, and severely restrict government efforts to close down or censor a private publication. In fact, when censorship attempts are made by government agencies, they are either done in clandestine fashion (to keep it from being known

3627-432: The action is being taken by a government agency) or are usually ordered stopped by the courts when judicial action is taken in response to them. A publication must, in general, be committing a crime (for example, reporters burglarizing someone's office to obtain information about a news item); violating the law in publishing a particular article or issue (printing obscene material, copyright infringement , libel , breaking

3720-467: The apparent source of agitation: the underground press. The police campaign may have had an effect contrary to that which was presumably intended. If anything, according to one or two who were there at the time, it actually made the underground press stronger. "It focused attention, stiffened resolve, and tended to confirm that what we were doing was considered dangerous to the establishment", remembered Mick Farren . From April 1967, and for some while later,

3813-478: The combat zone in Vietnam itself, The Boomerang Barb and GI Says . The boom in the underground press was made practical by the availability of cheap offset printing , which made it possible to print a few thousand copies of a small tabloid paper for a couple of hundred dollars, which a sympathetic printer might extend on credit. Paper was cheap, and many printing firms around the country had over-expanded during

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3906-400: The company sent out a distribution sheet with the strips it was selling, by such cartoonists as Gilbert Shelton , Bill Griffith , Joel Beck , Dave Sheridan , Ted Richards , and Harry Driggs . The Liberation News Service (LNS), co-founded in the summer of 1967 by Ray Mungo and Marshall Bloom , "provided coverage of events to which most papers would have otherwise had no access." In

3999-526: The country in the wake of court decisions making prosecution for obscenity far more difficult. These publications became the voice of the rising New Left and the hippie /psychedelic/ rock and roll counterculture of the 1960s in America, and a focal point of opposition to the Vietnam War and the draft . The North American countercultural press of the 1960s drew inspiration from predecessors that had begun in

4092-551: The departure for the UK of his original co-editors Richard Neville and Martin Sharp , who went on to found a British edition ( London Oz ) in January 1967. In Melbourne Phillip Frazer, founder and editor of pop music magazine Go-Set since January 1966, branched out into alternate, underground publications with Revolution in 1970, followed by High Times (1971 to 1972) and The Digger (1972 to 1975). The underground press offered

4185-466: The emergence of a whole range of local alternative newspapers, which were usually published monthly. These were largely made possible by the introduction in the 1950s of offset litho printing , which was much cheaper than traditional typesetting and use of the rotary letterpress. Such local papers included: A 1980 review identified some 70 such publications around the United Kingdom but estimated that

4278-530: The end of 1972, with the end of the draft and the winding down of the Vietnam War, there was increasingly little reason for the underground press to exist. A number of papers passed out of existence during this time; among the survivors a newer and less polemical view toward middle-class values and working within the system emerged. The underground press began to evolve into the socially conscious, lifestyle-oriented alternative media that currently dominates this form of weekly print media in North America. In 1973,

4371-405: The first professionally published work of Grant Morrison , Graham Manley , and Tony O'Donnell . It also featured the start of Bryan Talbot 's seminal graphic novel The Adventures of Luther Arkwright . Teenager Grant Morrison's contribution, Gideon Stargrave , later found his way into Morrison's Vertigo series The Invisibles . Perhaps the most successful of all British small press comics

4464-431: The founding members, regular contributors to Accent UK publications include Andy Bloor, Jon H. Ayre, David Hitchcock , John Reppion and Leah Moore (daughter of Alan Moore ), Bridgeen Gillespie ( Mr Maximo & Rabbit ), Garry Brown, and David Baillie. The 2007 anthology Zombies , included a cover by American artist Steve Bissette . The Judge Dredd Megazine featured a regular small press spotlight section between

4557-519: The incident as "Raid on the Yard". A day or two later The Daily Telegraph announced that the prank had resulted in all security passes to the police headquarters having to be withdrawn and then re-issued. By the end of the decade, community artists and bands such as Pink Floyd (before they "went commercial"), The Deviants , Pink Fairies , Hawkwind , Michael Moorcock and Steve Peregrin Took would arise in

4650-498: The increasing availability of digital printing has made professional printing affordable for short-run publications. Some of the spirit of small press comics can now also be found in webcomics . Traditionally, a small press publisher was simply a publisher who operated on a small scale, often with a manual printing press in-house. They produced limited print-runs of publications that larger, more commercially inclined publishers would reject. The history of British small press comics

4743-485: The introduction of Calvinism, which with its emphasis on intractable evil made its appeal to alienated, outsider subcultures willing to violently rebel against both church and state. In 18th century France, a large illegal underground press of the Enlightenment emerged, circulating anti-Royalist, anti-clerical and pornographic works in a context where all published works were officially required to be licensed. Starting in

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4836-466: The landmark Supreme Court decision in Miller v. California re-enabled local obscenity prosecutions after a long hiatus. This sounded the death knell for much of the remaining underground press (including underground comix ), largely by making the local head shops which stocked underground papers and comix in communities around the country more vulnerable to prosecution. The Georgia Straight outlived

4929-730: The likes of Alan Grant , Arthur Ranson , Al Ewing , Stewart McKenny , PJ Holden , Arthur Wyatt , Inaki Miranda & Eva de la Cruz, Adrian Bamforth , Matt Timson , Michael Molcher , Paul Scott and Charlie Adlard . In 2021, FutureQuake staff included art/commissioning editor Dave Evans, script editor Richmond Clements, editor Owen Watts, and webmaster Barny Shergold. Previous members include founder and sole editor for issues 1-3 Arthur Wyatt , script editor James Mackay, and script editor Edward Berridge. British small press comics Small press comics are traditionally sold by mail, using reviews and classified adverts , websites, email lists and word of mouth to reach an audience. There

5022-495: The look of American publishing." In the period 1969–1970, a number of underground papers grew more militant and began to openly discuss armed revolution against the state, some going so far as to print manuals for bombing and urging their readers to arm themselves; this trend, however, soon fell silent after the rise and fall of the Weather Underground and the tragic shootings at Kent State . During this period there

5115-502: The magazine's flagship character, Tank Girl , and Hewlett went on to work in animation, most notably creating the cartoon rock group Gorillaz . After Ed Pinsent finished with the last incarnation of Fast Fiction, cartoonist Luke Walsh (later known as Luke Temple Walsh) and reader Mike Kidson took over their mailing list with Zum! their new review zine. The first issue appeared in August 1991. Zum! distributed copies of comics submitted to

5208-627: The mid-19th century an underground press sprang up in many countries around the world for the purpose of circulating the publications of banned Marxist political parties; during the German Nazi occupation of Europe, clandestine presses sponsored and subsidized by the Allies were set up in many of the occupied nations, although it proved nearly impossible to build any sort of effective underground press movement within Germany itself. The French resistance published

5301-536: The most part they were distributed openly through a network of street vendors, newsstands and head shops , and thus reached a wide audience. The underground press in the 1960s and 1970s existed in most countries with high GDP per capita and freedom of the press ; similar publications existed in some developing countries and as part of the samizdat movement in the communist states , notably Czechoslovakia . Published as weeklies, monthlies, or "occasionals", and usually associated with left-wing politics , they evolved on

5394-805: The most prominent of the underground papers were the San Francisco Oracle , San Francisco Express Times , the Berkeley Barb and Berkeley Tribe ; Open City ( Los Angeles ), Fifth Estate ( Detroit ), Other Scenes (dispatched from various locations around the world by John Wilcock ); The Helix ( Seattle ); Avatar ( Boston ); The Chicago Seed ; The Great Speckled Bird ( Atlanta ); The Rag ( Austin, Texas ); Rat ( New York City ); Space City! ( Houston ) and in Canada, The Georgia Straight ( Vancouver , BC). The Rag , founded in Austin, Texas , in 1966 by Thorne Dreyer and Carol Neiman,

5487-590: The most violent attacks were carried out against the underground press in San Diego. In 1976 the San Diego Union reported that the attacks in 1971 and 1972 had been carried out by a right-wing paramilitary group calling itself the Secret Army Organization , which had ties to the local office of the FBI. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted surveillance and disruption activities on

5580-528: The name samizdat . The countercultural underground press movement of the 1960s borrowed the name from previous "underground presses" such as the Dutch underground press during the Nazi occupations of the 1940s. Those predecessors were truly "underground", meaning they were illegal, thus published and distributed covertly. While the countercultural "underground" papers frequently battled with governmental authorities, for

5673-580: The nature of alternative journalism as a subculture, some staff members from underground newspapers became staff on the newer alternative weeklies, even though there was seldom institutional continuity with management or ownership. An example is the transition in Denver from the underground Chinook , to Straight Creek Journal , to Westword , an alternative weekly still in publication. Some underground and alternative reporters, cartoonists, and artists moved on to work in corporate media or in academia. More than

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5766-525: The offices of Dallas Notes and jailed editor Stoney Burns on drug charges; charged Atlanta's Great Speckled Bird and others with obscenity; arrested street vendors; and pressured local printers not to print underground papers. In Austin, the regents at the University of Texas sued The Rag to prevent circulation on campus but the American Civil Liberties Union successfully defended

5859-454: The offices of many underground papers around the country, fortunately without causing any fatalities. The offices of Houston's Space City! were bombed and its windows repeatedly shot out. In Houston, as in many other cities, the attackers, never identified, were suspected of being off-duty military or police personnel, or members of the Ku Klux Klan or Minuteman organizations. Some of

5952-682: The one hand into today's alternative weeklies and on the other into zines . The most prominent underground publication in Australia was a satirical magazine called OZ (1963 to 1969), which initially owed a debt to local university student newspapers such as Honi Soit (University of Sydney) and Tharunka (University of New South Wales), along with the UK magazine Private Eye . The original edition appeared in Sydney on April Fools' Day, 1963 and continued sporadically until 1969. Editions published after February 1966 were edited by Richard Walsh , following

6045-590: The other member papers. During this period, there were also a number of left-wing political periodicals with concerns similar to those of the underground press. Some of these periodicals joined the Underground Press Syndicate to gain services such as microfilming , advertising, and the free exchange of articles and newspapers. Examples include The Black Panther (the paper of the Black Panther Party , Oakland, California ), and The Guardian (New York City), both of which had national distribution. Almost from

6138-458: The outset, UPS supported and distributed underground comix strips to its member papers. Some of the cartoonists syndicated by UPS included Robert Crumb , Jay Lynch , The Mad Peck 's Burn of the Week , Ron Cobb , and Frank Stack . The Rip Off Press Syndicate was launched c. 1973 to compete in selling underground comix content to the underground press and student publications . Each Friday,

6231-522: The paper's First Amendment rights before the U.S. Supreme Court. In an apparent attempt to shut down The Spectator in Bloomington, Indiana, editor James Retherford was briefly imprisoned for alleged violations of the Selective Service laws; his conviction was overturned and the prosecutors were rebuked by a federal judge. Drive-by shootings, firebombings, break-ins, and trashings were carried out on

6324-732: The peak years of the phenomenon, there were generally about 100 papers currently publishing at any given time. But the underground press phenomenon proved short-lived. An Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) roster published in November 1966 listed 14 underground papers, 11 of them in the United States, two in England, and one in Canada. Within a few years the number had mushroomed. A 1971 roster, published in Abbie Hoffman 's Steal This Book , listed 271 UPS-affiliated papers; 11 were in Canada, 23 in Europe, and

6417-406: The police raided the offices of International Times to try, it was alleged, to force the paper out of business. In order to raise money for IT a benefit event was put together, "The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream" Alexandra Palace on 29 April 1967. On one occasion – in the wake of yet another raid on IT – London's alternative press succeeded in pulling off what was billed as a 'reprisal attack' on

6510-486: The police. The paper Black Dwarf published a detailed floor-by-floor 'Guide to Scotland Yard ', complete with diagrams, descriptions of locks on particular doors, and snippets of overheard conversation. The anonymous author, or 'blue dwarf', as he styled himself, claimed to have perused archive files, and even to have sampled one or two brands of scotch in the Commissioner's office. The London Evening Standard headlined

6603-589: The reemergence of fanzines about comics in the Fantasy Advertiser mold. Battleground , edited by Andy Brewer, was at first mainly concerned with American superhero comics, although it also featured reviews and articles on small press comics, and interviews with the cartoonists. Vicious , edited by Pete Ashton, was more free-form, and promised to print all material submitted. Ashton also created TRS ( The Review Sheet ), collecting capsule reviews and contact details for small press comics, in 1995. In 1996 he set up

6696-604: The remainder in the United States. The underground press' combined readership eventually reached into the millions. The early papers varied greatly in visual style, content, and even in basic concept — and emerged from very different kinds of communities. Many were decidedly rough-hewn, learning journalistic and production skills on the run. Some were militantly political while others featured highly spiritual content and were graphically sophisticated and adventuresome. By 1969, virtually every sizable city or college town in North America boasted at least one underground newspaper. Among

6789-400: The rise of the small press both online and in print with conventions around the UK on an almost weekly basis and vibrant review platforms like Broken Frontier and Slings and Arrows supporting creators’ work. Underground press The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against

6882-524: The small press comic Malcolm Magic , have gone on to create "Monkey Nuts" for The DFC , "Yore" for the Dandy and "Baggage" for Random House . PJ Holden , Al Ewing , Arthur Wyatt and David Baillie (comics) emerged from the small press to work for 2000 AD . One of the current leading distros is SmallZone , founded in 1999 by Shane Chebsey, which also provides a printing service for small press creators. Chebsey and Andrew Richmond also publish comics under

6975-652: The small press include Gary Northfield , whose Derek the Sheep has gained a recurring slot in the Beano . Writer Jason Cobley, who has been self-publishing his Bulldog comics since the mid-90s, and former Bulldog Empire artist Neill Cameron , now work for The DFC and Classical Comics . Garen Ewing , who worked in small press comics in the 1990s, moved onto the web with The Rainbow Orchid , soon to be published in print by Egmont UK , and also contributes to The DFC . The Etherington Brothers (Robin and Lorenzo), creators of

7068-478: The style of children's comics of the 1970s. The group publishes Solar Wind , Sunny for Girls , Big War Comic , Omnivistascope and is connected to The End Is Nigh (through Solar Wind editor/writer Paul Scott and other creators). London Underground Comics is both a weekly market stall in Camden Lock Market and a loose collective of U.K. based small press creators whose work is sold and displayed on

7161-520: The term "small press" used for similar publications at a poetry festival. Gravett and Peter Stanbury published many of the Fast Fiction artists in Escape Magazine from 1983 to 1989. Between 1983 and 1995 Zine Zone (later Zine Zone International), a Bristol-based company specialising in mail order, comic mart service and publications, focused international attention on UK small pressers and helped

7254-458: The true number could well have run into hundreds. Such papers were usually published anonymously, for fear of the UK's draconian libel laws. They followed a broad anarchist , libertarian , left-wing of the Labour Party , socialist approach but the philosophy of a paper was usually flexible as those responsible for its production came and went. Most papers were run on collective principles. In

7347-472: The underground movement, evolving into an alternative weekly still published today; Fifth Estate survives as an anarchist magazine. The Rag – which was published for 11 years in Austin (1966–1977) – was revived in 2006 as an online publication, The Rag Blog , which now has a wide following in the progressive blogosphere and whose contributors include many veterans of the original underground press. Given

7440-508: The underground press in the United States, including a campaign to destroy the alternative agency Liberation News Service . As part of its COINTELPRO designed to discredit and infiltrate radical New Left groups, the FBI also launched phony underground newspapers such as the Armageddon News at Indiana University Bloomington , The Longhorn Tale at the University of Texas at Austin , and

7533-515: The war and circulated locally on and off-base. Several GI underground papers had large-scale, national distribution of tens of thousands of copies, including thousands of copies mailed to GI's overseas. These papers were produced with the support of civilian anti-war activists, and had to be disguised to be sent through the mail into Vietnam, where soldiers distributing or even possessing them might be subject to harassment, disciplinary action, or arrest. There were at least two of these papers produced in

7626-516: The weekly stall. London Underground Comics was founded in November 2007 by Camden-based creator Oli Smith who co-ran the stall with the help of a variety of small press creators until 2009. LUC also ran larger one-day events that took up an additional 1,000 square feet (93 m ) of Camden Lock Market such as No Barcodes in April 2008 and Low Energy Day in August 2008. LUC promoted their stall and events via YouTube videos. The UK Web & Mini Comix Thing

7719-507: The wishes of a dominant (governmental, religious, or institutional) group. In specific recent (post-World War II) Asian, American and Western European context, the term "underground press" has most frequently been employed to refer to the independently published and distributed underground papers associated with the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s in India and Bangladesh in Asia, in

7812-415: The world's underground publications. He also listed many of the regular key topics from those publications, including the Vietnam War , Black Power , politics, police brutality , hippies and the lifestyle revolution, drugs, popular music, new society, cinema, theatre, graphics, cartoons, etc. Apart from publications such as IT and Oz , both of which had a national circulation, the 1960s and 1970s saw

7905-597: The years of 2007 and 2009, featuring columns by Matt Badham and David Baillie and a selection of strips by creators from the small press scene. FutureQuake Publishing was originally set up to publish the anthology comic FutureQuake . By a combination of launching new titles and taking over existing ones whose owners retire from the scene, they have built up a stable including MangaQuake , Something Wicked and Lost Property , as well as 2000AD fanzines Zarjaz and Dogbreath . Solar Wind has won numerous awards for its long-running series of parodic comics, which pastiche

7998-462: Was Fantasy Advertiser . There were also regular markets or "marts" which served as a social meeting place for artists and fans. This was the backbone of small press comics. Among the earliest British small press comics was The Tale of Beem Gotelump. It told the story of an aging jazz musician who was tasked by the Archangel Gabriel with playing the last trumpet at the end of the world. It

8091-410: Was A4 (as opposed to IT 's broadsheet format). Very quickly, the relaunched Oz shed its more austere satire magazine image and became a mouthpiece of the underground. It was the most colourful and visually adventurous of the alternative press (sometimes to the point of near-illegibility), with designers like Martin Sharp . Other publications followed, such as Friends (later Frendz ), based in

8184-564: Was a mail-order distributor and publisher set up by Australian pavement artist Peter Pavement and also Dave Hanna in the early 1990s. Its first title was Pavement's own Pavement Pizza , and it soon began selling British small press comics (including such titles as Time Warp: The End of the Century Club , by Ed Hillyer ; Sugar Buzz by Woodrow Phoenix , and Witch by Lorna Miller) and zines on marts in Brighton and Hove , and importing books from

8277-511: Was a yearly event in London run by Patrick Findlay that brings the British small press and webcomics communities together to sell and promote their work. Radio 4 broadcast a series on small press publishing, aired late 2009. One of the episodes focussed on small press comics, reviewing titles from both The UK and from the USA/Canada. One of the titles featured was the cult London small press comic "Eat, Drink & Be Buried." Recent years have seen

8370-525: Was also a widespread underground press movement circulating unauthorized student-published tabloids and mimeographed sheets at hundreds of high schools around the U.S. (In 1968, a survey of 400 high schools in Southern California found that 52% reported student underground press activity in their school.) Most of these papers put out only a few issues, running off a few hundred copies of each and circulating them only at one local school, although there

8463-475: Was created and published by Eddie Campbell under the pseudonym "Roland Bunn" in 1975. Kevin O'Neill and co-writer Jack Adrian published Mek Memoirs in 1976. It was a 12-page "stripzine" about a robot war, which can be seen as a precursor to O'Neill's later work on 2000 AD . Near Myths was an underground comics anthology published in Edinburgh from 1978 to 1980. It ran for five issues and featured

8556-503: Was especially influential. Historian Laurence Leamer called it "one of the few legendary undergrounds," and, according to John McMillian, it served as a model for many papers that followed. The Rag was the sixth member of UPS and the first underground paper in the South and, according to historian Abe Peck , it was the "first undergrounder to represent the participatory democracy, community organizing and synthesis of politics and culture that

8649-768: Was one system-wide antiwar high school underground paper produced in New York in 1969 with a 10,000-copy press run . Houston's Little Red Schoolhouse, a citywide underground paper published by high school students, was founded in 1970. For a time in 1968–1969, the high school underground press had its own press services : FRED (run by C. Clark Kissinger of Students for a Democratic Society , with its base in Chicago schools) and HIPS (High School Independent Press Service, produced by students working out of Liberation News Service headquarters and aimed primarily but not exclusively at New York City schools). These services typically produced

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