Bugle (newspaper)

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The Bugle or Bugle-American (the latter was the original name) was an underground newspaper based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and distributed throughout Wisconsin from 1970 to 1978. While by no means conservative, the Bugle saw itself as less radical that the city's other underground newspaper, Kaleidoscope (in some ways making it a predecessor to the alternative newsweekly genre)^[1]; but it was not viewed that way by the local establishment media such as the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel. It was founded by Denis Kitchen and four friends, ^[2] most of them (like Kitchen) former journalism students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The tongue-in-cheek name was inspired by that of the Daily Bugle, the fictional newspaper published by Spiderman-hater J. Jonah Jameson. Due to Kitchen's interest in underground comics, the Bugle featured the works not only of local artists like Kitchen, Jim Mitchell, Don Glassford, Bruce Walthers, and Wendel Pugh, but work by nationally-known artists like Robert Crumb as well. On February 22, 1975, the Bugle's office on Bremen Street on the East Side was firebombed. The newspaper's next issue was delayed only a week, aided by financial support from such fans as George Reedy, Leonard Cohen and Bryan Ferry.^[3] Like the bombing at about the same time of Kaleidoscope's editor John Kois' car, this bombing was never solved; many suspected involvement by the Milwaukee Police Department's Red Squad.^[4]

Veterans of the Bugle (in addition to Kitchen) include Tony Capaccio (later editor of Jane's Defence Weekly), Greg Kot (the Chicago Tribune's pop music critic since 1990), and Rob Fixmer (later technology news editor of the New York Times).

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