The Saga of Volume 2, Issue 1

by James Norton

The first issue of our second season was good for morale. We got a letter of endorsement from the Onion's graphic designer, and they were just heating up. We sold enough ads (about $70 worth) to fund half the issue. But since I was the sole ad salesman, I quit the job after this (single) issue's worth of sales and went back to my preferred fundraising method: begging from friends and the semi-stable group of people whose $5, $10 and $20 contributions made the Liberator possible.

We got our masthead on, which was good for two reasons: Feeling more accountable for our work, we were a bit more thoughtful about what we published, and we were able to personally receive more kudos as earned them, making the whole process much more satisfying.

But more important than the masthead was the addition of Nick Coleman. Nick was a guy I used to argue against in Mr. Prugh's social studies class; he'd take the far left point of view on the issue of the day, and I'd take a more moderate (for West, "conservative") stance, and we'd argue for 15 minutes at a time.

Although Nick didn't write prodigiously for the Liberator, he did something more important: he kept the rest of us sane. He understood the Liberator's sense of humor and balance of articles better than any of us, perhaps, and used his sense of aesthetics, sharp copy-editor's eye and wisdom to keep our issues fresh as hell. Working with him was a pleasure, and he rounded out the team quite nicely.

The involvement of Jeremy Richards was another coup. The founder of West's Monty Python movie club, Jeremy's funked-out sensibility and cutting wit was key to the Liberator's second season.

Things were changing at West, for the better. Leon Barnard had just founded The Free Thought Club, and attending its meetings became a favorite pasttime for Liberator staffers and the random intellectual riff-raff who made up the core of our readership. The Free Thought Club was all about philosophy, but we didn't debate the ideas of others; we argued about our own thoughts, and philosophized collaboratively. It was no-pressue, warm, and highly amusing. Good times.

Around this issue, I also co-founded an organization for Madison student papers called the Student Information Network. We had 4-5 meetings where we exchanged papers, "sindicated" a few stories, and then went bust-o. But in the process of founding SIN, I met my first girlfriend, who later hooked up with layout guy Jon, leading me to punch Jon in the nose.

Fortunately, the paper survived.