An Appreciation of Colorado’s Underground Press

I wrote a post in 2020 on alternative newspapers from 1969-1980, covering Chinook and The Straight Creek Journal. The Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection recently expanded the alternative or “underground” titles to include Solid Muldoon (Denver) (1967-68), Teleidoscopic Collage (1967-68), The Mountain Free Press (1968-69), Inner Word Wire Service (1967), The Mile High Underground (1967), The Hooligan (1993-2003), and War Time Smile (2007).

What is an Underground Newspaper?

In this context, underground does not mean illegal, as the freedom of the press was established under the First Amendment to the US Constitution and subsequent court decisions. Instead, underground publications in the US were usually independent local papers, outwardly opposing certain policies, the government, or dominant groups.

As you can see, they had interesting, non-standard names (and typefaces, images, layouts, etc.), immediately letting the reader know not to expect the standard fare of the mainstream. Funny and subversive in language, tone, and outlook, these titles went beyond news coverage by creating an irreverent visual – and intellectual – cornucopia unlike anything being made today.

Newspaper as Art

Take The Hooligan (creator: John Reidy, who also did the later War Time Smile), described by Westword as “one of the best zines ever to come out of Denver: brash, rude, often offensive, and even more frequently snort-the-beverage-of-your-choice-outta-each-nostril funny.”  The aesthetics of The Hooligan also surely kept readers returning, and before long its bold black and white design started to include color. Each one of its starkly illustrated covers could be framed and hung, not as postmodern relics, but as the contemporary artworks they are. Click a cover to go to the issue.

Newspaper as Counterculture

The rest of the titles recently added in this domain were from the 1960s, a key era for underground media in the US with the Civil Rights Movement and hippy/anti-war counterculture. These newspapers were still modeled on the mainstream press in construction but contain in-depth critiques on American policies and culture, defenses of counterculture figures, interviews, and creative outlets like poetry. The overall tone, often humor-laden, is distinctly anti-status quo and mocking, as illustrated in the copyright statement found in the first edition of Teleidoscopic Collage:

As a leader of followers the TC depends solely upon contribution from the talented public, barring only selfstyled rag pickers, mild-mannered reporters from would-be great metropolitan newspapers, vagabond gypsy fiddlers, malice mendicants, idol rich (or idle anybody), scintillating temptresses, peace hawks or war doves, or anyone’ else caught trying to gnaw at the vitals of our moral fiber. TC officers for the 1967-68 term (democratically self-appointed) are: […]

Set aside 15 minutes to read one or two issues in their entirety to see how entertaining, radical, and interesting these publications were and still are, how flat-out beautiful they could be. Find them all in the Colorado Historic Newspapers Underground Press collection.

Underground/alternative newspapers/zines, like independent local newspapers in general, are a rarity in today’s digital media monopolies. Apparently overwhelmed by the increasingly censored digital space, this vacuum could be opportune for the right groups of creatives. As disillusionment with the dying internet and its divisive algorithms seeps deeper into everyday discourse, we could see the triumphant return of the independent press (maybe even printed material), as with all cool things from bygone eras that scratch some deep itch.