San Diego Reader
Encyclopedia
The San Diego Reader is the largest alternative press
paper in the county of San Diego, distributed free
in stands and private businesses throughout the county, funded by advertisements. It frequently presents an opposing viewpoint to the San Diego Union Tribune, the primary printed newspaper in the city.
The Reader, as it is commonly known, was founded in 1972 by Jim Holman, who attended Carleton College
and was one of the original group who established the Chicago Reader. Although Holman briefly owned shares in the Chicago paper, none of the Chicago owners had an interest in the San Diego paper. Holman used the Reader format and nameplate with the blessings of his friends in Chicago.
Noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater, the Reader is recognized as a pioneer among alternative weeklies for both its creative nonfiction
and its commercial scheme, using ad revenue (particularly from classifieds and entertainment promotions) to establish the practice of widespread free circulation, a cornerstone of today's alternative papers.
Published weekly since October 1972, the Reader is known as a showcase for San Diego writers and photographers. Each issue of the Reader is dated every Thursday and distributed free on Wednesday and Thursday via street boxes and cooperating retail outlets.
has written the Reader's movie reviews.
Recent notable cover stories have included in-depth overviews chronicling San Diego history and pop culture, such as Before It Was the Gaslamp: Downtown’s Grindhouse Theater Row in the ‘70s, Gompers School Takes a Bow, The Rise and Fall of San Diego’s Pacific Comics, Pussycat Theaters – a Comprehensive History of a California Dynasty, Field of Screens: San Diego Drive-In Theater History 1947 – 2008, and Africans, Asians, Hispanics, and Hipsters: Changes in City Heights.
The paper has also become increasingly known for its local political coverage, due in no small part to the addition of columnist Don Bauder to the staff. Bauder become financial editor and columnist for the daily San Diego Union paper in 1973. When the Union and rival Tribune merged in the early 1990s, he remained at that post; in 1995, he was named senior columnist at the Union-Tribune. In 1985 and 1986, Bauder wrote Captain Money and the Golden Girl, a book about a local San Diego Ponzi scheme which stayed on the L.A. Times best-seller list for more than two months. He retired from the U-T in March of 2003 and began writing his weekly column for the Reader in April of 2003. He started his blog Scam Diego in September of 2007, regularly engaging so many local readers that the comment section frequently racks up to a hundred or more comment posts for each blog post.
Among the Reader’s political and sociological cover features are Soho VS Developers: What’s Worth Saving in San Diego, Obama Taps Alan Bersin to Cover the Border, It’s Getting Ugly Downtown, What’s Wrong With Balboa Park?, San Diego’s Secret Missile Testing Sites, and a whistleblowing feature Just Save My Life, exposing how clinic trials of an experimental blood substitute called PolyHeme
were being conducted on city medical patients without their knowledge.
Beginning around 2003, a political comic strip also began running in the paper, "Obermeyer’s Cut," by Neal Obermeyer
. Other well-known comic artists who've served as staffers include Jim Cornelius, who illustrated Matthew Alice's longrunning "Straight From the Hip" column from the earliest issues until being replaced by Rick Geary
in the later 1970s, as well as famed surf artist and California landscape painter Jeff Yeomans (whose wall murals on San Diego buildings included the Unicorn Trading Company on India Street) and Revolutionary Comics
Managing Editor Jay Allen Sanford
.
In the editorial staff, the paper’s longtime editor Judith Moore was an American author and essayist best known for her 2005 book Fat Girl: A True Story, published by Hudson Street Press. Joining the Reader staff in 1983 and subsequently known as “Mother Reader” for many years, she specialized in book reviews (especially food writing) and offbeat, whimsical feature subjects. Once, she visited a San Diego sausage factory and described it in lurid detail, in order to test the cliché that no one wanted to see sausage being made. She mentored dozens of writers still contributing to the paper to this day. Moore died of colon cancer after three years of treatment in May 2006. A memorial feature about Miss Moore written by several staffers ran August 16, 2007, called She Hated Adverbs.
The paper's local music coverage reportedly earns some of its heaviest website traffic, including columns and staff blogs like "Blurt", "Lists", "Musician Interviews", "Record Release Roundup", "Here's the Deal" (local venue reviews), "Rock Around the Town," "Jam Session," and "Out and About." The magazine's massive online "Local Music Database" chronicles the histories of over 3,000 San Diego bands and 9,000 local musicians, from the 1940s through today, with discographies, biographies, interviews, article links, videos, and playable MP3s. The music section comic strip "Overheard in San Diego" has been running since late 1995, spinning off an omnibus book collection in 2012 containing over 700 strips.
With an average of over 220 pages each week, the Reader is reportedly the largest alternative publication in the nation. It is the second-largest circulation newspaper in San Diego, currently claiming a single-issue circulation of 170,000 and a 4-week readership of over 777,000 adults.
As a free publication with high circulation figures, the Reader generates high advertising revenue. A quarter-page color ad can cost as much as $3,000 for a single run.
Editor and publisher Jim Holman, a conservative Catholic who also publishes the online California Catholic Daily, has reportedly spent more than $5 million of his own money on three separate ballot measures (Props. 73, 85 and 4) that would require a doctor to notify the parents of a minor female before performing an abortion. The most recent measure, Prop. 4, which would have amended the state constitution, was defeated 52 percent to 48 percent on Nov. 4, 2008.
is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, an executive member of Women In Film, a member of the Screen Actors Guild
, a member of the Independent Filmmakers Alliance and a member of Film Independent. As a contributing writer for the San Diego Reader, she has authored several articles, including Murder in Las Vegas.
Richard Meltzer
is a music critic whose first book, The Aesthetics of Rock
, was one of the earliest rock-focused literary efforts. In the 1980s, while writing for the Reader chain, Meltzer’s articles for the L.A. Reader on the ugliest buildings in Los Angeles were later published as a book. He moved to Portland, Oregon
in the 1990s, but continued contributing to the San Diego Reader, mostly music columns and autobiographical stories. He was also a regular columnist for Addicted to Noise
, and by 2004 he was a contributor to a new weekly, Los Angeles CityBeat
.
Paul Williams
is an American
music journalist and writer. Williams created the first national US magazine of rock music
criticism
Crawdaddy!
in January 1966.
Duncan Shepherd
is a longtime film critic
whose pithy, incisive, and very often negative reviews began running in the San Diego Reader on November 2, 1972, continuing through the November 10, 2010 issue, where he announced his retirement. Originally, Shepherd had no rating system, but he was persuaded to institute a four star system, later expanding that to five. Five-star reviews have become rare: only two movies since 2000 have received the highest rating: Mystic River
(2003) and Stevie (2002). Less than 100 films are listed as 5-star films, while nearly 2,000 have had the black spot, his lowest rating, bestowed upon them.
David Elliott is a longtime film critic
who replaced Duncan Shepherd
in the San Diego Reader as of the November 17, 2010 edition. He spent around 24 years as a columnist for the city’s rival newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune
, before going to work for the Reader. He has also written for the Chicago Daily News
, the Chicago Sun-Times
, USA Today
, and SDNN.com. According to his debut Reader column, Elliott cites his favorite movies as including Satyajit Ray
’s The Apu Trilogy, Citizen Kane
, The Rules of the Game
, The Godfather
, The Seven Samurai
, and 2001: A Space Odyssey
, as well as the westerns of Budd Boetticher
and Buster Keaton
comedies.
Jay Allen Sanford
is an author and cartoonist best known for his work with Revolutionary Comics
and Carnal Comics
. He co-created the comic book Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics with Todd Loren
in 1989, which is still being published in 2010 by Bluewater Productions
. The publishing company he founded, Carnal Comics
, is known for launching the movie and cartoon character Demi the Demoness
. His Reader comic strip "Overheard in San Diego" was launched in late 1995, while a second weekly Reader strip, "Famous Former Neighbors" debuted in 2002. Both reality-based strips are still running. Besides writing several full-length cover features per year (many autobiographical), his other columns for the paper have included "Blurt", "Lists", "URLwatching", "Record Release Roundup", "Most Downloaded", the magazine's online "Local Music Database", and the daily entertainment and pop culture blog "Rock Around the Town."
Rick Geary
is a cartoonist and graphic novel writer best known for his contributions to the Heavy Metal
and National Lampoon magazines. The National Cartoonist Society awarded Geary its Magazine and Book Illustration Award in 1994. At the San Diego Reader, he has been illustrating the staff-written advice and trivia column "Straight From the Hip" -- aka "Ask Matthew Alice" – since the late seventies, as well as contributing spot illustrations throughout the newspaper.
Colin Flaherty
was a contributor to the San Diego Reader from 1990 to 1994. His story on the unjust conviction of Kelvin Wiley resulted in Wiley's release from Soledad prison, and was featured on Court TV. He was named top political reporter by the San Diego Press Club.
Bart Mendoza
is a musician and journalist who has written for numerous publications, including San Diego’s Axcess Magazine and local editions of The Reader
and San Diego CityBeat
, as well as The San Diego Union and its weekly arts insert Night & Day. National publications include the second series of Crawdaddy!
. International publications he has contributed to include British Time Out Guides for Southern California and the Spanish rock magazine Ansia De Color. He has also penned liner notes for recording artists including Phil Angeloff, Ray Brandes, Ryan Ferguson
and The Lolas and music compilations such as This is Mod Volume 6, from Cherry Red
Records.
Eleanor Widmer scoured San Diego in search of culinary treasures for the Reader from 1974 to 2000. Often disdaining established and chain restaurants, she gravitated to obscure and new eateries, sometimes adopting the nickname "Aunt Bertha" for her more contentious reviews. She carried her Reader food critic career over into radio and television in the 1980s and 1990s, on KPBS-FM
radio and at KNSD
-TV 39, where she answered callers' questions on restaurants and foods. Widmer, who frequently donned wigs to preserve her critic's anonymity on food-themed television shows, died November 8, 2004, at Scripps Health
Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, at the age of 80.
Jerry Schad authored the book Afoot and Afield in San Diego County, published by Wilderness Press in 1986 and widely considered one of the most comprehensive guides to public hiking lands in San Diego county. An instructor of astronomy at Mesa College, Schad was trained in physics and astronomy at UC Berkeley and at San Diego State University
. He began writing the "Roam-O-Rama" outdoors column for the Reader in 1993, maintaining it weekly until shortly before his passing (related to cancer) on September 22, 2011.
Alternative media
Alternative media are media which provide alternative information to the mainstream media in a given context, whether the mainstream media are commercial, publicly supported, or government-owned...
paper in the county of San Diego, distributed free
Gratis
Gratis is the process of providing goods or services without compensation. It is often referred to in English as "free of charge" or "complimentary"...
in stands and private businesses throughout the county, funded by advertisements. It frequently presents an opposing viewpoint to the San Diego Union Tribune, the primary printed newspaper in the city.
The Reader, as it is commonly known, was founded in 1972 by Jim Holman, who attended Carleton College
Carleton College
Carleton College is an independent non-sectarian, coeducational, liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, USA. The college enrolls 1,958 undergraduate students, and employs 198 full-time faculty members. In 2012 U.S...
and was one of the original group who established the Chicago Reader. Although Holman briefly owned shares in the Chicago paper, none of the Chicago owners had an interest in the San Diego paper. Holman used the Reader format and nameplate with the blessings of his friends in Chicago.
Noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater, the Reader is recognized as a pioneer among alternative weeklies for both its creative nonfiction
Creative nonfiction
Creative nonfiction is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contrasts with other nonfiction, such as technical writing or journalism, which is also rooted in accurate fact, but is not primarily written in service...
and its commercial scheme, using ad revenue (particularly from classifieds and entertainment promotions) to establish the practice of widespread free circulation, a cornerstone of today's alternative papers.
Published weekly since October 1972, the Reader is known as a showcase for San Diego writers and photographers. Each issue of the Reader is dated every Thursday and distributed free on Wednesday and Thursday via street boxes and cooperating retail outlets.
Background
Specializing in feature stories, the Reader covers San Diego life in general, with emphasis on politics and the arts and entertainment. The Reader also publishes listings of movies, events, theater and music, restaurant and film reviews, and free classified advertisements for its readers. Its "City Lights" section contains short investigative reports into the dealings of the city, while the "Calendar" section highlights local society, things to do, places to eat, and the local music scene. Beginning November 2, 1972, film critic Duncan ShepherdDuncan Shepherd
Duncan Shepherd, a longtime film critic, wrote a weekly column for the alternative weekly the San Diego Reader from 1972 until November 2010, when he announced that he was retiring the column....
has written the Reader's movie reviews.
Recent notable cover stories have included in-depth overviews chronicling San Diego history and pop culture, such as Before It Was the Gaslamp: Downtown’s Grindhouse Theater Row in the ‘70s, Gompers School Takes a Bow, The Rise and Fall of San Diego’s Pacific Comics, Pussycat Theaters – a Comprehensive History of a California Dynasty, Field of Screens: San Diego Drive-In Theater History 1947 – 2008, and Africans, Asians, Hispanics, and Hipsters: Changes in City Heights.
The paper has also become increasingly known for its local political coverage, due in no small part to the addition of columnist Don Bauder to the staff. Bauder become financial editor and columnist for the daily San Diego Union paper in 1973. When the Union and rival Tribune merged in the early 1990s, he remained at that post; in 1995, he was named senior columnist at the Union-Tribune. In 1985 and 1986, Bauder wrote Captain Money and the Golden Girl, a book about a local San Diego Ponzi scheme which stayed on the L.A. Times best-seller list for more than two months. He retired from the U-T in March of 2003 and began writing his weekly column for the Reader in April of 2003. He started his blog Scam Diego in September of 2007, regularly engaging so many local readers that the comment section frequently racks up to a hundred or more comment posts for each blog post.
Among the Reader’s political and sociological cover features are Soho VS Developers: What’s Worth Saving in San Diego, Obama Taps Alan Bersin to Cover the Border, It’s Getting Ugly Downtown, What’s Wrong With Balboa Park?, San Diego’s Secret Missile Testing Sites, and a whistleblowing feature Just Save My Life, exposing how clinic trials of an experimental blood substitute called PolyHeme
PolyHeme
PolyHeme is a temporary oxygen-carrying blood substitute made from human hemoglobin that is currently in development for emergency treatment of trauma situations where large volumes of blood are lost, with emphasis on situations where fresh blood for transfusion is not readily available...
were being conducted on city medical patients without their knowledge.
Beginning around 2003, a political comic strip also began running in the paper, "Obermeyer’s Cut," by Neal Obermeyer
Neal Obermeyer
Neal Obermeyer is an editorial cartoonist for the Lincoln Journal-Star, the San Diego Reader, and the Omaha Reader. He currently resides in Omaha, Nebraska, United States.-Early life:...
. Other well-known comic artists who've served as staffers include Jim Cornelius, who illustrated Matthew Alice's longrunning "Straight From the Hip" column from the earliest issues until being replaced by Rick Geary
Rick Geary
Rick Geary is an American cartoonist and illustrator.-Biography:Rick Geary was born on February 25, 1946 in Kansas City, Missouri. Geary was initially introduced to comics readers with his contributions to the Heavy Metal and National Lampoon magazines...
in the later 1970s, as well as famed surf artist and California landscape painter Jeff Yeomans (whose wall murals on San Diego buildings included the Unicorn Trading Company on India Street) and Revolutionary Comics
Revolutionary Comics
Revolutionary Comics was a U.S. comic book publisher best known for the series Rock 'N' Roll Comics, launched in 1989. Founded by publisher Todd Loren, the line featured unlicensed biographies of rock stars, told in comic book form but geared for adults, often with very adult situations...
Managing Editor Jay Allen Sanford
Jay Allen Sanford
Jay Allen Sanford is an American author and cartoonist best known for his work with Revolutionary Comics, Carnal Comics, and Pacific Comics. He co-created the comic book Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics with Todd Loren in 1989, which is still being published in 2011 by Bluewater Productions...
.
In the editorial staff, the paper’s longtime editor Judith Moore was an American author and essayist best known for her 2005 book Fat Girl: A True Story, published by Hudson Street Press. Joining the Reader staff in 1983 and subsequently known as “Mother Reader” for many years, she specialized in book reviews (especially food writing) and offbeat, whimsical feature subjects. Once, she visited a San Diego sausage factory and described it in lurid detail, in order to test the cliché that no one wanted to see sausage being made. She mentored dozens of writers still contributing to the paper to this day. Moore died of colon cancer after three years of treatment in May 2006. A memorial feature about Miss Moore written by several staffers ran August 16, 2007, called She Hated Adverbs.
The paper's local music coverage reportedly earns some of its heaviest website traffic, including columns and staff blogs like "Blurt", "Lists", "Musician Interviews", "Record Release Roundup", "Here's the Deal" (local venue reviews), "Rock Around the Town," "Jam Session," and "Out and About." The magazine's massive online "Local Music Database" chronicles the histories of over 3,000 San Diego bands and 9,000 local musicians, from the 1940s through today, with discographies, biographies, interviews, article links, videos, and playable MP3s. The music section comic strip "Overheard in San Diego" has been running since late 1995, spinning off an omnibus book collection in 2012 containing over 700 strips.
With an average of over 220 pages each week, the Reader is reportedly the largest alternative publication in the nation. It is the second-largest circulation newspaper in San Diego, currently claiming a single-issue circulation of 170,000 and a 4-week readership of over 777,000 adults.
As a free publication with high circulation figures, the Reader generates high advertising revenue. A quarter-page color ad can cost as much as $3,000 for a single run.
Editor and publisher Jim Holman, a conservative Catholic who also publishes the online California Catholic Daily, has reportedly spent more than $5 million of his own money on three separate ballot measures (Props. 73, 85 and 4) that would require a doctor to notify the parents of a minor female before performing an abortion. The most recent measure, Prop. 4, which would have amended the state constitution, was defeated 52 percent to 48 percent on Nov. 4, 2008.
Notable contributors, reporters, and writers
Julia DavisJulia Davis (American cinema)
-Affiliations and activities:Julia Davis is a Member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Executive Member of Women In Film, member of the Screen Actors Guild, member of the Independent Filmmakers Alliance, and a member of Film Independent....
is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, an executive member of Women In Film, a member of the Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
, a member of the Independent Filmmakers Alliance and a member of Film Independent. As a contributing writer for the San Diego Reader, she has authored several articles, including Murder in Las Vegas.
Richard Meltzer
Richard Meltzer
Richard Meltzer was one of the earliest rock music critics. His first book, The Aesthetics of Rock, evolved out of his undergraduate studies in philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and graduate studies at Yale University...
is a music critic whose first book, The Aesthetics of Rock
The Aesthetics of Rock
The Aesthetics of Rock is a book by Richard Meltzer . Written between 1965 and 1968, it was published in 1970. Da Capo Press in 1987 published an unabridged edition with a new foreword by Meltzer. It is one of the first major works of rock-music criticism and analysis...
, was one of the earliest rock-focused literary efforts. In the 1980s, while writing for the Reader chain, Meltzer’s articles for the L.A. Reader on the ugliest buildings in Los Angeles were later published as a book. He moved to Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
in the 1990s, but continued contributing to the San Diego Reader, mostly music columns and autobiographical stories. He was also a regular columnist for Addicted to Noise
Addicted to Noise
Addicted to Noise was an online music magazine in the early days of the World Wide Web. Founded by ex-Rolling Stone editor and writer Michael Goldberg and online music pioneer Jon Luini, it published its first issue in January 1995 and was the first online magazine to include audio samples along...
, and by 2004 he was a contributor to a new weekly, Los Angeles CityBeat
Los Angeles CityBeat
Los Angeles CityBeat was an alternative weekly newspaper in Los Angeles, California, debuting June 12, 2003. The publication ceased production with the March 26, 2009 issue. LA CityBeat was available every Thursday at more than 1,500 distribution locations throughout the Los Angeles area, with an...
.
Paul Williams
Paul Williams (Crawdaddy! creator)
Paul Williams is an American music journalist and writer. Williams created the first national US magazine of rock music criticism :Crawdaddy! in January 1966 on the campus of Swarthmore College with the help of some of his fellow science fiction fans...
is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
music journalist and writer. Williams created the first national US magazine of rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
criticism
Music journalism
Music journalism is criticism and reportage about music. It began in the eighteenth century as comment on what is now thought of as 'classical music'. This aspect of music journalism, today often referred to as music criticism , comprises the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of...
Crawdaddy!
Crawdaddy!
Crawdaddy! was the first U.S. magazine of rock and roll music criticism. Created in 1966 by college student Paul Williams in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music, Crawdaddy! was self-described as "the first magazine to take rock and roll...
in January 1966.
Duncan Shepherd
Duncan Shepherd
Duncan Shepherd, a longtime film critic, wrote a weekly column for the alternative weekly the San Diego Reader from 1972 until November 2010, when he announced that he was retiring the column....
is a longtime film critic
Film criticism
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films, individually and collectively. In general, this can be divided into journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, and other popular, mass-media outlets and academic criticism by film scholars that is informed by film theory and...
whose pithy, incisive, and very often negative reviews began running in the San Diego Reader on November 2, 1972, continuing through the November 10, 2010 issue, where he announced his retirement. Originally, Shepherd had no rating system, but he was persuaded to institute a four star system, later expanding that to five. Five-star reviews have become rare: only two movies since 2000 have received the highest rating: Mystic River
Mystic River (film)
Mystic River is a 2003 American drama film directed, co-produced and scored by Clint Eastwood, starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney and Emmy Rossum. The film was written by Brian Helgeland, based on Dennis Lehane's novel of the same...
(2003) and Stevie (2002). Less than 100 films are listed as 5-star films, while nearly 2,000 have had the black spot, his lowest rating, bestowed upon them.
David Elliott is a longtime film critic
Film criticism
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films, individually and collectively. In general, this can be divided into journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, and other popular, mass-media outlets and academic criticism by film scholars that is informed by film theory and...
who replaced Duncan Shepherd
Duncan Shepherd
Duncan Shepherd, a longtime film critic, wrote a weekly column for the alternative weekly the San Diego Reader from 1972 until November 2010, when he announced that he was retiring the column....
in the San Diego Reader as of the November 17, 2010 edition. He spent around 24 years as a columnist for the city’s rival newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune
The San Diego Union-Tribune
-Predecessors:The predecessor newspapers of the Union-Tribune were:* San Diego Sun, founded 1861 and merged with the Evening Tribune in 1939.* San Diego Union, founded October 10, 1868.* Evening Tribune, founded December 2, 1895.-Ownership:...
, before going to work for the Reader. He has also written for the Chicago Daily News
Chicago Daily News
The Chicago Daily News was an afternoon daily newspaper published between 1876 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.-History:The Daily News was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty in 1875 and began publishing early the next year...
, the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, and SDNN.com. According to his debut Reader column, Elliott cites his favorite movies as including Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
’s The Apu Trilogy, Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
, The Rules of the Game
The Rules of the Game
The Rules of the Game is a 1939 French film directed by Jean Renoir about upper-class French society just before the start of World War II...
, The Godfather
The Godfather
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
, The Seven Samurai
The Seven Samurai
is a 1954 Japanese adventure drama film co-written, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film takes place in 1587 during the Warring States Period of Japan...
, and 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
, as well as the westerns of Budd Boetticher
Budd Boetticher
Oscar "Budd" Boetticher, Jr. was a film director during the classical period in Hollywood most famous for the series of low-budget Westerns he made in the late 1950s starring Randolph Scott.Known for their sparse style, dramatic rocky locations near Lone Pine, California, and recurring stories of...
and Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
comedies.
Jay Allen Sanford
Jay Allen Sanford
Jay Allen Sanford is an American author and cartoonist best known for his work with Revolutionary Comics, Carnal Comics, and Pacific Comics. He co-created the comic book Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics with Todd Loren in 1989, which is still being published in 2011 by Bluewater Productions...
is an author and cartoonist best known for his work with Revolutionary Comics
Revolutionary Comics
Revolutionary Comics was a U.S. comic book publisher best known for the series Rock 'N' Roll Comics, launched in 1989. Founded by publisher Todd Loren, the line featured unlicensed biographies of rock stars, told in comic book form but geared for adults, often with very adult situations...
and Carnal Comics
Carnal Comics
Carnal Comics is an adults-only comic book imprint which has so-far been published by three companies: Revolutionary Comics , Re-Visionary Press and Opus Graphics...
. He co-created the comic book Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics with Todd Loren
Todd Loren
Todd Loren was an American comic book publisher, owner of Revolutionary Comics and its title Rock 'N' Roll Comics.- Biography :...
in 1989, which is still being published in 2010 by Bluewater Productions
Bluewater Productions
Bluewater Productions, Inc. is an independent production studio of comic books and graphic novels. Based in Vancouver, Washington, Bluewater publishes biographical comics, adaptations from films and original titles with self-created characters, most notably of publisher Darren G...
. The publishing company he founded, Carnal Comics
Carnal Comics
Carnal Comics is an adults-only comic book imprint which has so-far been published by three companies: Revolutionary Comics , Re-Visionary Press and Opus Graphics...
, is known for launching the movie and cartoon character Demi the Demoness
Demi the Demoness
Demi the Demoness is a fictional, humorous, erotic comics character whose fantasy adventures have been published since 1992. She has appeared in numerous comic crossovers with other characters including Shaundra, Captain Fortune, Mauvette, Vampirooni, Cassiopeia the Witch, Djustine, and adult film...
. His Reader comic strip "Overheard in San Diego" was launched in late 1995, while a second weekly Reader strip, "Famous Former Neighbors" debuted in 2002. Both reality-based strips are still running. Besides writing several full-length cover features per year (many autobiographical), his other columns for the paper have included "Blurt", "Lists", "URLwatching", "Record Release Roundup", "Most Downloaded", the magazine's online "Local Music Database", and the daily entertainment and pop culture blog "Rock Around the Town."
Rick Geary
Rick Geary
Rick Geary is an American cartoonist and illustrator.-Biography:Rick Geary was born on February 25, 1946 in Kansas City, Missouri. Geary was initially introduced to comics readers with his contributions to the Heavy Metal and National Lampoon magazines...
is a cartoonist and graphic novel writer best known for his contributions to the Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal (magazine)
Heavy Metal is an American science fiction and fantasy comics magazine, known primarily for its blend of dark fantasy/science fiction and erotica. In the mid-1970s, while publisher Leonard Mogel was in Paris to jump-start the French edition of National Lampoon, he discovered the French...
and National Lampoon magazines. The National Cartoonist Society awarded Geary its Magazine and Book Illustration Award in 1994. At the San Diego Reader, he has been illustrating the staff-written advice and trivia column "Straight From the Hip" -- aka "Ask Matthew Alice" – since the late seventies, as well as contributing spot illustrations throughout the newspaper.
Colin Flaherty
Colin Flaherty
Colin Flaherty is a writer, talk show host and the owner of an on-line ad agency and public relations company.His by-line has appeared in dozens of languages around the world, and he has been a guest on numerous local and national TV and radio programs on the NPR, ABC, CBS, Fox and other...
was a contributor to the San Diego Reader from 1990 to 1994. His story on the unjust conviction of Kelvin Wiley resulted in Wiley's release from Soledad prison, and was featured on Court TV. He was named top political reporter by the San Diego Press Club.
Bart Mendoza
Bart Mendoza
Bart Mendoza is an American journalist, musician and songwriter.From 1981 to 1990, he was frontman and chief songwriter for mod-influenced group Manual Scan. Since 1991 he has performed with power-pop group The Shambles...
is a musician and journalist who has written for numerous publications, including San Diego’s Axcess Magazine and local editions of The Reader
The Reader
The Reader is a novel by German law professor and judge Bernhard Schlink, published in Germany in 1995 and in the United States in 1997...
and San Diego CityBeat
San Diego CityBeat
San Diego CityBeat is an alternative weekly newspaper in San Diego, California that focuses on local progressive politics, arts, and music. It is published every Wednesday and distributed around San Diego county, although with a focus on the city of San Diego itself, with a weekly circulation of...
, as well as The San Diego Union and its weekly arts insert Night & Day. National publications include the second series of Crawdaddy!
Crawdaddy!
Crawdaddy! was the first U.S. magazine of rock and roll music criticism. Created in 1966 by college student Paul Williams in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music, Crawdaddy! was self-described as "the first magazine to take rock and roll...
. International publications he has contributed to include British Time Out Guides for Southern California and the Spanish rock magazine Ansia De Color. He has also penned liner notes for recording artists including Phil Angeloff, Ray Brandes, Ryan Ferguson
Ryan Ferguson
Ryan Ferguson is an Indie Rock guitarist and singer/songwriter, formerly of Southern California band No Knife. Ferguson's solo debut Three, Four was released in July 2005, winning a San Diego Music Award for “Best Pop Record” that year. The Sims 2 featured an interpretation of the album's lead...
and The Lolas and music compilations such as This is Mod Volume 6, from Cherry Red
Cherry Red
Cherry Red is a London-based independent record label formed in 1978.-History:Cherry Red grew from the rock promotion company founded in 1971 to promote rock concerts at the Malvern Winter Gardens...
Records.
Eleanor Widmer scoured San Diego in search of culinary treasures for the Reader from 1974 to 2000. Often disdaining established and chain restaurants, she gravitated to obscure and new eateries, sometimes adopting the nickname "Aunt Bertha" for her more contentious reviews. She carried her Reader food critic career over into radio and television in the 1980s and 1990s, on KPBS-FM
KPBS-FM
KPBS-FM is a non-commercial public radio station licensed to San Diego State University, broadcasting in San Diego on 89.5 MHz, 89.1 MHz K206AC in La Jolla, and on 97.7 MHz KQVO in Calexico, Imperial County. The station is affiliated with National Public Radio, with programming...
radio and at KNSD
KNSD
KNSD is the NBC television station based in San Diego, California. It is owned by a joint venture of NBCUniversal and LIN TV . However, because NBCUniversal has majority control, KNSD is run as an NBC owned and operated station...
-TV 39, where she answered callers' questions on restaurants and foods. Widmer, who frequently donned wigs to preserve her critic's anonymity on food-themed television shows, died November 8, 2004, at Scripps Health
Scripps Health
Scripps Health is a nonprofit health care system based in San Diego, California. The system includes four hospitals and 19 outpatient facilities, and treats a half-million patients annually through 2,600 affiliated physicians....
Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, at the age of 80.
Jerry Schad authored the book Afoot and Afield in San Diego County, published by Wilderness Press in 1986 and widely considered one of the most comprehensive guides to public hiking lands in San Diego county. An instructor of astronomy at Mesa College, Schad was trained in physics and astronomy at UC Berkeley and at San Diego State University
San Diego State University
San Diego State University , founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, is the largest and oldest higher education facility in the greater San Diego area , and is part of the California State University system...
. He began writing the "Roam-O-Rama" outdoors column for the Reader in 1993, maintaining it weekly until shortly before his passing (related to cancer) on September 22, 2011.