Wisconsin Independent News Distributors
Wisconsin Independent News Distributors was an alternative left wing news distributor founded in 1971 in Madison, Wisconsin by Jack Dunn, Roger Metcalf, Bill Morris, Roney Sorenson. All were students or otherwise involved in the radical student movement of the times at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The collective expanded through the 1970s to involve over 20 people. It operated throughout northern Illinois, Wisconsin, and eastern Minnesota. Left wing and progressive materials of all kinds from music to drug publications to focused left wing periodicals were delivered by truck route to a broad assemblage of retail stores. Retail resellers included head shops, which catered to the youth culture, food coops, music stores, and regular periodical retail operations. Notable among material it distributed were TakeOver a Madison, WI based underground newspaper. It was also among the first, select group to distribute Prairie Fire, the manifesto of the Weather Underground. 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. 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 (above ground e.g. Marvel, DC) comic books. Initially absorbed by a counterpart organization Big Rapids Distribution Company in Detroit MI, which went bankrupt in 1980, its surviving elements provided a starting point for Capital City a large comic book distributor operated for many years by a late arriving member of the original WIND collective, Milton Griep.