''Wisconsin Independent News Distributors (WIND)'' was an alternative

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

news

distributor A distributor is an electric and mechanical device used in the ignition system of older spark-ignition engines. The distributor's main function is to route electricity from the ignition coil to each spark plug at the correct time. Design ...

founded in 1971 in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the List of municipalities in Wisconsin by population, second-most populous city in the state, with a population of 269,840 at the 2020 Uni ...

by Jack Dunn, Roger Metcalf, Bill Morris, and Roney Sorenson. All were students or otherwise involved in the radical student movement of the times at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

, Madison. The collective expanded through the 1970s to involve over 20 people, and expanding its operations throughout northern

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

, and eastern

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

Services

WIND distributed left-wing and progressive materials of all kinds, from music to drug publications to focused left-wing periodicals, which were delivered by truck route to a broad assemblage of retail stores. Retail resellers included

head shops A head shop is a retail outlet specializing in paraphernalia used for consumption of cannabis and tobacco and items related to cannabis culture and related countercultures. They emerged from the hippie counterculture in the late 1960s, and ...

, which catered to the youth culture,

food cooperatives A food cooperative or food co-op is a food distribution outlet organized as a cooperative, rather than a private or public company. Food cooperatives are usually consumers' cooperative, consumer cooperatives, where the decisions regarding the produ ...

, music stores, and regular periodical retail operations. Notable among the material it distributed was ''TakeOver'', a Madison-based

underground newspaper The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant (governmental, religious, or institutional) group. In specific rece ...

. WIND was also among the first select groups to distribute ''Prairie Fire'', the manifesto of the

Weather Underground The Weather Underground was a far-left Marxist militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, or simply Weatherman, the group was organized as a f ...

. In years subsequent to the operation of WIND as a political collective, it was learned the organization had been under routine surveillance by law enforcement agencies.

Transition to comic book distributor

WIND enjoyed a multi-year run in its original incarnation until a waning of left-wing political activity brought change to the general culture. Ultimately the politically oriented organization devolved into a more mainstream product distributor focused on mainstream comic books. Initially absorbed by a counterpart organization, the Detroit-based

Big Rapids Distribution Big Rapids Distribution was a Detroit-based distributor focusing on underground newspapers, radical literature, and underground comix. They were responsible for the unusually good coverage that underground comix and underground papers got in the M ...

, which went bankrupt in 1980, its surviving elements provided a starting point for

Capital City Distribution Capital City Distribution was a Madison, Wisconsin–based comic book distributor which operated from 1980 to 1996 when they were acquired by rival Diamond Comic Distributors. Under the name Capital Comics, they also published comics from 1981 ...

, a large comic book distributor operated for many years by two late-arriving members of the original WIND collective,

Milton Griepp Milton Griepp (born c. 1954) is an American businessman who has spent the bulk of his career involved with American comic books. He was the co-founder and CEO of Capital City Distribution, a distributor of comic books and related material, from ...

and John Davis."Who We Are: Milton Griepp," ICv2.com.
Accessed October 15, 2009.

References

{{reflist Mass media in Wisconsin Comics industry Companies based in Madison, Wisconsin Privately held companies based in Wisconsin Wholesalers of the United States Business services companies established in 1971 1971 establishments in Wisconsin