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| Gahan Wilson generously agreed to do a cover for Hoot |
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| It was a Hoot
while it lasted
During the mid ’80s and early ’90s, I published a humor tabloid in Columbus called Hoot. It combined syndicated text and cartoon features with locally generated humor.
In its heyday, Hoot had subscribers in nearly every state and a dozen foreign countries and a circulation of 20,000. And it actually made money in spite of my lack of business sense.
I had a stable of local artists and a few writers who contributed on an irregular basis, satirizing local figures and institutions. Eventually, I started writing regular columns, which led to a writing gig with the Guardian, a weekly paper that has since vanished. (There were too many small publications, including Hoot, competing for the same advertising dollar.)
Ad parodies or mock ads were a regular feature of Hoot. The best issue was published April 1st (don't ask what year) and was a parody of one of my competitors, a weekly news and entertainment paper called The Other Paper. The parody was called An Other Paper.
At the time, Other Paper publisher Max Brown sent me a letter saying in jest that, if I ever made money, he would sue the pants off of me.
No danger of that, Max.
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