The Los Angeles Free Press (1964 - currently in publication) was among the most widely distributed underground newspapers of the 1960s. It is often cited as the first such newspaper. The Free Press was edited and published weekly, for most of its existence, by Art Kunkin. The paper initially appeared as a broadsheet, in 1964, at the annual Southern California Renaissance Faire. At this time it was entitled Faire Free Press. In 1965 it became the Los Angeles Free Press.

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  • The Los Angeles Free Press (1964 - currently in publication) was among the most widely distributed underground newspapers of the 1960s. It is often cited as the first such newspaper. The Free Press was edited and published weekly, for most of its existence, by Art Kunkin. The paper initially appeared as a broadsheet, in 1964, at the annual Southern California Renaissance Faire. At this time it was entitled Faire Free Press. In 1965 it became the Los Angeles Free Press. This newspaper was notable for its radical politics when such views rarely saw print. This was a new kind of journalism at that time. People were tired of “The Big Lie” and the way ‘news’ was being brought to them, edited so as to tell the story of how well our government was working in their behalf. The Free Press saw itself as an advocate of personal freedom as well as a vehicle to aid in the anti-Vietnam war movement. With its readership, particularly readers ready to sit, march, and sing, The Los Angeles Free Press is given degrees of credit for the ending of the Vietnam War, because of its coverage and how it became a touchstone for the activists, both everyday people and celebrities. The Free Press wrote about and was often directly involved in the major historic issues and people of the 60's & 70's such as the Chicago 7 Trial, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg and Abbie Hoffman. Both the famous and the infamous would open up to the Los Angeles Free Press from Bob Dylan, to the Black Panthers, to Jim Morrison to Iceberg Slim. People were willing to pay twenty-five cents for the Free Press, even though readers could get mainstream dailies such as the Los Angeles Times for ten cents back then. The cry at the corner was "Don’t be a Creep, Buy a Freep!" The scene was so unique to Los Angeles, that in the movie I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, Peter Sellers (when he "sees the light" and converts from lawyer to hippie) is hawking them, as well. The paper also pioneered the emerging field of underground comics by publishing the “underground” political cartoons of Ron Cobb. The Free Press was a founding member of the Underground Press Syndicate. It was the impetus for a network of 600 community, student and alternative newspapers throughout the United States. Author Charles Bukowski wrote the column "Notes of A Dirty Old Man" for the Los Angeles Free Press beginning in 1969. The cartoonist Ron Cobb created an ecology symbol and published on November 7th, 1969, in the Los Angeles Free Press and then placed it in the public domain. The symbol was a combination of the letters "E" and "O" taken from the words "Environment" and "Organism", respectively. Look magazine incorporated the symbol into a flag in their April 21, 1970 issue. The flag was patterned after the flag of the United States, and had thirteen stripes alternating green and white. Its canton was green with the ecology symbol where the stars would be in the United States flag. In 1970, much of the newspaper's staff and then editor Brian Kirby left the paper due to financial and editorial differences. The team began a competing newspaper, The Staff.
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  • The Los Angeles Free Press (1964 - currently in publication) was among the most widely distributed underground newspapers of the 1960s. It is often cited as the first such newspaper. The Free Press was edited and published weekly, for most of its existence, by Art Kunkin. The paper initially appeared as a broadsheet, in 1964, at the annual Southern California Renaissance Faire. At this time it was entitled Faire Free Press. In 1965 it became the Los Angeles Free Press.
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  • Los Angeles Free Press
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