Avatar
Cover of the first issue of Avatar (1967)
TypeBiweekly underground newspaper
Formatnewspaper
PublisherTrust Incorporated
EditorBrian Keating (issues 6 to 21)
FoundedJune 9, 1967
LanguageEnglish
Ceased publicationApril 26, 1968
HeadquartersBoston, Massachusetts

Avatar was an American underground newspaper published in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1967–1968. The newspaper's first issues were published from the headquarters of Broadside magazine in Cambridge.[1]

Publication history

Avatar was started by a varied group of people from different parts of the Boston countercultural scene, but quickly came to be dominated by Mel Lyman's group, the Fort Hill Community (or Lyman Family), which Lyman had formed over some years in Boston and Cambridge, and which has been variously described as a commune, family, or cult.[2][3]

Over time, disputes between the Fort Hill Community and other factions involved in putting out the paper led to an irreconcilable split, which ended that cycle of the paper.[4]

A total of 24 issues were printed bi-weekly from June 9, 1967, through April 26, 1968.[5] Toward the end of its run, six issues (nos. 18–23) were published in large-size broadsheet newspaper format, with a tabloid size magazine insert. A 25th issue, dated May 9, 1968, was assembled and printed by the non-Fort Hill faction, but all but 500 copies of the 35,000-copy press run were sequestered and disposed of by the Fort Hill faction.[4] Michael Kindman, founder of the East Lansing underground newspaper The Paper, briefly worked on Avatar and remained with the group for five years. He later wrote of his experiences, including his participation in the theft, in his book My Odyssey Through the Underground Press.[6]

Spin-offs

There were three short-lived spinoffs of Avatar:

See also

References

  1. ^ "Incident in Harvard Square". Boston Magazine. January 1968. Archived from the original on 2011-07-11. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
  2. ^ Vrabel, Jim (2004). When in Boston. Bostonian Society. p. 415. ISBN 9781555536213. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
  3. ^ "The Mel Lyman Personality Cult Revisited" by Kliph Nesteroff
  4. ^ a b David Felton, "The Lyman Family's Holy Siege of America". Originally appeared in Rolling Stone 98, Dec. 23, 1971, pp. 40-60, and Rolling Stone 99, Jan. 6, 1972, pp. 40-60. Reprinted in Mindfuckers: A Source Book on the Rise of Acid Fascism in America, David Felton, ed. (San Francisco: Straight Arrow, 1972) and reprinted in its entirety in Steve Trussel's Mel Lyman archive.
  5. ^ McCleary, John Bassett (2004). Hippie Dictionary. Ten Speed Press. p. 676. ISBN 978-1-58008-547-2. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
  6. ^ Michael Kindman, My Journey Through the Underground Press. In Ken Wachsberger, ed., Voices from the Underground: Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press Vol. 1, pp. 369-478. Mica Press 1993, and Michigan State University Press, June 1, 2011. The chapters from this book describing Kindman's Fort Hill experience are reprinted at Steve Trussel's Mel Lyman archive.
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