Space City News, vol. 1, no. 1 (Jun 5 1969)
The first edition cover of Space City News with Annlie Italic and Berthold-Grotesk Bold with its alternate a and w. “20 ¢” is added in Bulletin Typewriter.
Space City News was a short-lived (1969–1972) “New Left” newspaper in Houston, Texas. It focused on the pressing issues of the time, from the Vietnam War and nationwide struggle for civil rights, to police brutality and other matters central to the revolutionary reader base of the time (akin to publications like The Great Speckled Bird and The Chicago Seed), while also spotlighting local issues and artistry.
Notable stories of the first issue include William F. Buckley’s acquisition of local black Houston radio, labor strike coverage, the inadequacies of Texas State welfare program, and – the biggest story – the People’s Park uprising in Berkeley and subsequent police brutality against those protesting the University of California’s desire to turn it into a soccer field.
The first edition was dedicated to Pancho Villa, a general of the Mexican Revolution.
Spread with pages 2 and 3, with headlines in Bulletin Typewriter (left) and Twentieth Century Ultrabold Extended (right).
Detail from page 5, with Playbill and Berthold-Grotesk Bold. The typewriter face seen below is in a Cubic style. Lukas Krakora’s digital Aachen Typewriter comes close.
Spread with pages 6 and 7, Cooper Black (top left) and the Light weight of Berthold-Grotesk (“dallas goon squads of yore”).
Spread with pages 18 and 19, with Cooper Black (left) and headlines in Futura Bold Oblique (or maybe Spartan Black Italic) for “Rocky & Warhol?”, Futura Condensed for “grand jury”, and an unidentified face for “Kindergarten”.
Detail from page 19 with Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed, lettering, and an unidentified typewriter style
Detail from page 19 with contoured Cooper Black and Futura Display for “art cinema”
Detail from page 20 with Ultra Bodoni Extra Condensed and Cheltenham Bold Extra Condensed
Detail from page 23 with “space city news” in Playbill
4 Comments on “Space City News, vol. 1, no. 1 (Jun 5 1969)”
Thank you for this contribution!
Like similar underground publications from this period, the production of Space City News combines a range of typographic techniques, including various typewriters, hand lettering, dry transfer type, possibly phototypesetting, and more.
Annlie was a Letraset original issued in 1966. The jumpy lines in Berthold-Grotesk suggests that they were composed with rubdown type, too. Chartpak showed such an adaptation as Simplex Bold (Simplex was Olive’s name for Berthold-Grotesk) in a 1965 catalog.
I’ve added a couple of IDs in addition to those you already found. I didn’t look deeper into the typewritten text – if anyone has any insights into those, let us know.
Same goes for the bold condensed sans that appears in a number of headlines, but is eluding me. It’s not Railroad Gothic, see e.g. the S and also the fact that there’s a lowercase. I meant to say Filmotype Ginger, but it appears to be a tad bolder and wider, and also not a perfect match in all details. Filmotype Gem is too bold and wide and doesn’t have a lowercase. Here are some assorted samples.
The 1950s-era bold condensed gothics appear to be all the same Lettering Inc. face, 220·8, which had upper and lower cases available as of 1951. In later specimens, the “S” with the nearly horizontal spine seems to have been substituted for the version with a more 45° diagonal. From the earlier specimen, it seems that the diagonal spine was already in use for the oblique forms. It is possible that those alternates were available from day one, but they also could have been added later as tastes changed over the decades.
These Lettering Inc workhorse gothics would later form the basis for the Directors Gothic series of revivals.
That’s outstanding! Thanks for the missing ID and also for the specimen scans, Josh, very helpful.
I had a hunch that the Lettering Inc. library will provide answers for several of the mid-20th century font ID riddles from the United States. I also figured that some of the Filmotype designs were partly based or inspired by it – the shown 20·8 and Fargo is one such case – and there probably are some crosslinks to the early PLINC catalog to be found as well.
Unfortunately, Lettering Inc. (along with early Headliners) is a blank spot on my map, due to a lack of access to specimens. All the more I’m grateful for these glimpses into their catalog.
I’ve assigned Directors Gothic to this Use and updated our typeface page for it, with more info and a link to these specimens. As you point out in your other comment, Summerour’s “digital revivals are not 100% loyal to the hand-drawn source material”. I still think its best to have a single page for the digital and analog versions. I understand that “Directors Gothic” is not a name used in the 20th-century materials, is it?
Among the 90 styles of the digital family, Directors Gothic 210 Ultra probably comes closest to the snippets shown above. (The current Font Bros Collection page lists only 88 styles, omitting 210 Ultra in upright and oblique, of all things.) This heaviest weight of the narrowest width is narrower (but the 220 is already way too wide) and also has a lower x-height. The font has several alternates, including for the S you mention. The sample below features the alternate forms for K and t. There’s no g with vertically cut loop.