Los Angeles Free Press

The Los Angeles Free Press (often called "the Freep") was among the most widely distributed underground newspapers of the 1960s, and it is often cited as the first such paper. Edited and published (weekly, for most of its existence) by Art Kunkin, the paper initially appeared as a broadsheet titled "Faire Free Press" in 1964, then became the LA Free Press newspaper in 1965. Notable for its radical politics when such views rarely saw print, the paper also pioneered the emerging field of underground comix by publishing the 'underground" political cartoons of Ron Cobb.

Related Topics:
Underground newspaper - Art Kunkin - Underground comix - Ron Cobb

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About 1970, much of the newspaper's staff bolted from Kunkin to start a competing paper, The Staff. Just after this happened however, the building the Freep was housed in mysteriously burned to the ground in a conflagration the arson investigators termed "remarkable". Noteworthy at the time, the Los Angeles Fire Department took over two hours to respond to the alarm. The cause of the fire has never been determined. Comcurrent with this incident was the forced closure of the Freep's bookstore at the corner of Fair Oaks and Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, on the grounds of "Health Code violations". It is worth pointing out that the bookstore did not sell food, only printed material.

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The newspaper also ran a weekly television column by noted fantast and screenwriter Harlan Ellison. After the Freep folded, approximately 104 of these columns were published by Ellison in two volumes, entitled The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat. Because of some...unkind...remarks Ellison made concerning then Vice President Spiro Agnew, the publisher was quietly informed by the Nixon administration that these works were not to be distributed in the United States, although they were freely available at the time in Canada. They were finally distributed in the 1980's by Berkeley Press, with a foreword by Ellison describing the supression.

Related Topics:
Harlan Ellison - The Glass Teat - The Other Glass Teat - Spiro Agnew - Nixon - United States - Canada - Berkeley Press

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The Los Angeles Free Press was a founding member of the Underground Press Syndicate.

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On September 13, 2005 The Freep was born again. Its premier issue was distributed on this date, and the weekly newspaper was born again. It retained much of the same ideals and beliefs and was again spearheaded by Art Kunkin with an entirely new and loyal staff.

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