The Saga of Volume 1, Issue 1

by James Norton

The Liberator was born in the house of Alex P. McMahon, the publication's founder and original editor. Memories of the founding are scattered. The paper was manufactured, in part, on the ancient PC of Alex's dad. The elder McMahon gave us a long, stern lecture about the dangers of producing seditious literature, leading to the very first disclaimers. And the issue was bad.

Very bad. Crying out loud bad. Typefaces: mixed and barely legible. Layout: sprawling and haphazard. Writing: mostly very, very bad.

Still, it's surprising how much of Volume 1, Issue 1's spirit would linger. We always had our three heroes of the banner, as inaugurated in this issue: Malcolm X, Leon Trotsky and Thomas Jefferson. And we always had a wacky Fourth Guy; the very first Fourth Guy was some hapless motherfucker we plucked from a middle school yearbook. It eventually got back to him that he was gracing the cover of an underground newspaper, and it fazed him greatly. I'd like to meet the first Fourth Guy today, and see what sort of impact it had. But his name has long since fled the confines of memory.

Issue 1 also boasts disclaimers, wacky clip art, and pseudonyms. The first two would be with us for the duration. The last would end after the fateful Volume 1, Issue 5.

Issue 1 also has a comic, Bear 'n Rat. Reading the comic – after Columbine, and as a relatively well-adjusted adult – is sort of haunting. The themes are definitely violently anti-teacher, and anti-school, and it confirms what is now only dimly remembered: We hated our school. We hated the teachers, the administrators, and the stifling confines of a place that felt more like a prison than a place of education.

What's particularly disturbing about all this is how good West actually was, something I wouldn't put together publically until writing an opinion column in Volume 2, Issue 7.

Christ allmighty. Being young is all about pain and confusion. Later in life, at least things start to make sense.