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| publications established in 1983 | |
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Like The Onion , The ''Loon News'' The ''Loon News'' also included unconventional and non-parodic material ranging from music and film reviews to extended personal essays and discussion of cofounder M. C. Brennan REGULAR FEATURES In addition to standard news parody, the ''Loon News'' monthly features included:
REPORTERS AND EDITORS The ''Loon News'' has been continually edited by at least one of its founders since its inception. Mike Sortino (later M. C. Brennan) was Editor-In-Chief from 1983 to 1984. Eric Paul Johnson edited the paper from 1984 to 1993, with a brief hiatus in which editing duties were temporarily turned over to Richard Boland , an original member of The Loons. In 1993, Brennan resumed editorial duties and remains in charge of the Loon News' production. In addition to Brennan, Johnson and Boland, prominent Loon News writers have included Kim Darling, Mychele Dee, Keith Lloyd, J. Leon Keith, and Melissa Wilmot. Dee, Keith and Wilmot have since gone on to successful writing careers. The Loon News published several columns by fictional columnists including:
Many of these characters had their origins in The Loons' live stage performances, video work, audio recordings or radio shows. HISTORY The ''Loon News'' was born out of the comedic and artistic efforts of a group of young Phoenix teenagers called The Loons . M. C. Brennan (then known as Mike Sortino) and Eric Paul Johnson met in grade school and began collaborating on a wide variety of creative endeavors, including music, film, radio, performance art, books, and--with the advent of the Loon News--journalism. The Loons took their name from, and were inspired by, Phoenix DJ Jonathon Brandmeier , and both Sortino and Johnson made key early appearances on Brandmeier's KZZP radio show that laid the groundwork for their later success. It was Johnson who designed the first issue of the Loon News in early 1981, but the project was abandoned until the spring of 1983, when Johnson inadvertently ran over a bird while mowing his mother's lawn. (After a significant debate in print over the course of the past 23 years, the consensus holds that the bird was alreday deceased.) Sortino found this incident hilariously morbid, rushed to a typewriter and composed a salacious, slanted tabloid account of the event, entitled "Fiend On The Loose," implicating various local authorities. A few hours later, Sortino had not only written the entire contents of Loon News #1, he had devised a logo, written and hand-typeset headlines, pasted the contents together and made copies which were distributed the following day at Desert Sky Junior High School in Glendale, Arizona. The results were so popular that there were funds for a second issue, in which the travails of the "birdkiller" were continued. But Loon News #2 was successful because of another story, "Reagan Gives Gift To In 1993, after a name and gender transition, Sortino/Brennan assembled much of the original writing staff and revived the Loon News, culminating in an internet edition, wider distribution of the print edition, a profile by columnist Bill Goodykoontz in the May 16, 1999 edition of the Arizona Republic , and regular attention in the weekly "papers" segment of ABC News After a flood of successful issues in 1999 and 2000, a series of personal tragedies forced Brennan to place the print edition of the Loon News on indefinite hiatus. A regular Internet edition continued through late 2003, but as of August 2006, the Internet edition is no longer begin updated. Brennan continues to work as a writer and performer; Johnson is a cartoonist and the creator of the Loon News-inspired Mike And Eric comic strip. THE LOONS Sortino and Johnson both freely used the Loon News as a promotional arm of their "media empire," trumpeting their (often fictional) activities and appearances in a mockingly self-serving public-relations language. However, many of the most popular moments in the Loon News--spoofs like "Loon Aid" and "Hands Across Eric's Room"--had their newspaper origins in actual comedic/performance art events staged by The Loons ; as such, both the events and the stories about the events were coordinated for maximum satiric effect. Content from the print edition of the Loon News was also used in The Loons LN7 In the mid-to-late 1980s, Sortino began the first tentative steps towards a gender transition from male to female, and began to move in new creative directions. Stage and film acting, a promising recording and performance career as a rock singer, and "serious" literary aspirations made the Loon News comedy style something of a relic to Sortino, who nonetheless wanted to participate in some form. Johnson provided unrestricted space, and Sortino devised "LN7", a seventh page feature in which Sortino discussed current projects and her gender struggles with unusual openness. Often handwritten, LN7 (a name chosen because it reads the same upside down) was confessional but nonetheless retained the sardonic, often black humor that was Sortino's trademark. However, during this time, Brennan developed and put forth a philosophy that suggested the overuse of postmodernist Irony and Nihilistic detachment were corrosive not only to comedy, but to every aspect of life from the personal to the political. In interviews and several LN7 essays, Brennan advocated a comedy that grew organically from honest self-revelation and principled personal and political beliefs, using satire as a tool for positive change. Regardless of its merits, the "anti-irony" manifesto changed the heading of the Loon News shortly before postmodernist irony itself beame a hot commodity on the national stage, helping many Loon News competitors to reach great success. Brennan later noted that this was, in fact, an ironic development. HIGHLIGHTS Some of the more noteworthy moments in the Loon News included:
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