What was the Liberator?

By James Norton

From 1993 until 1995, the Liberator was an underground – and later, independent – newspaper produced by students at West High School, in Madison, Wisconsin.

Its circulation varied from 100 (the original issue) up to 700 (the mini-edition.) Most issues circulated between 300 and 500 copies. West had a student body of around 2,000, so this meant that Liberators got passed around – alot. Unlike the Regent Review (the official school paper) which coated the floor like autumn leaves after its release date, the Liberator was deliciously scarce.

This website archives the first two volumes of the Liberator, during my editorship. Twelve complete issues and an omnibus collection are represented here, with original text and graphics.

Though the Liberator lived on beyond its '93-'94 glory days, its publication frequency and circulation was much diminished. But a year after its final demise, a new monthly, called The Yellow Press, sprung up in its wake. And though the Yellow Press is no longer with us, the cycle continues with nascent rumblings of yet another underground publication at West.

The Liberator stood for a lot of values that still mean a lot to its original creators. It stood for harassing the administration. It stood for freedom of expression. It stood for bold, whip-snapping comedy. It stood for standing up, facing the system, and yelling "I AM NOT A NUMBER! I AM A FREE MAN!"

Or something like that.

Anyway, it represents my past, my rabblerousing journalistic heritage, and some halcyon days. So, lest the issues crumble into mouldy yellow dust, here they are: digital, forever. For better or worse.

Contact Information

If you've got questions / corrections / stories about the Liberator, drop me a note: jim@flakmag.com.

Production Notes and Thanks

The process of archiving the Liberator has been a pain in the ass, but I hope my efforts have done justice to the original project. It greatly pained me that some of the "found object" joy of the print edition was lost; but it just doesn't make sense to have random art and quotes pop up in arbitrary HTML files.

The archival process involved OCR-scanning all the Liberator text into messy .rtf files; correcting all the .rtf files so the text was clean; scanning all the original graphics; building CSS templates so the pages would look clean; building indices of each issue's content; collecting the art from the various editions into one place; stuffing all the content into templates; posting all the files on the Web and troubleshooting them.

I've done my best to preserve the original look and feel of the Liberator; though I've fixed the odd spelling mistake or two, I've done nothing to edit – even when I badly wanted to.

This project was made possible by Becca Dilley, whose help with OCR scanning and cascading style sheets was absolutely invaluable. Thanks, Becca!