A Look Back at Our First Issue Ever

A Look Back at Our First Issue Ever

Highlights from the November 26, 1986
Debut of the Santa Barbara Independent

By Matt Kettmann | August 27, 2026

The cover was rather muted, by today’s standards: a pale yellow banana with a red stick of dynamite next to a pixelated “1” and the words “Volume One Number One,” predicting, presumably, a forthcoming explosion of journalism in Santa Barbara.

Those sparks continue to fly 40 years later, as do customs that came along with that inaugural edition: the Angry Poodle (eventually revealed to be Nick Welsh, see here); Josef Woodard’s constant byline; a robust Arts & Entertainment section hitting everything from dance to film; a News section about offshore oil, controversial developments, and boneheaded criminals; and lots and lots of advertisements from Santa Barbara businesses, some that continue to support the paper today.

That issue launched perhaps the Indy’s proudest tradition: a cover story on the region’s Local Heroes, which remains as our Thanksgiving week issue each November. The 1986 version honored names that still ring bells today, at least for those in town in more recent decades: theater leader Rod Lathim, arts organizer Patrick Davis, lawyer extraordinaire Deborah Talmage, activist-politico Joyce Howerton, UCSB events guru Roman Baratiak, and Casa de la Raza’s Armando Vallejo, to name a few.

The paper opens with a letter from the paper’s then-new owner-operators Marianne Partridge (who owned the News & Review) and Randy Campbell (who owned The Weekly). They merged their two papers to make the Independent, and “committed to publishing an independent newspaper for independent people.”

That week’s Angry Poodle, signed by Trixie, relayed praise from the News-Press boss B. Dale Davis on the new paper; poked fun at Mayor Sheila Lodge, who said the column was like “fingernails on a blackboard”; and mentioned a typesetting error that inserted a $ sign into Exxon’s ad in the final News & Review issue. There was also an update on the attempt to revive the anti-outdoor-sleeping ordinance, and some pondering over whether David Landecker would run for Tom Rogers’s City Council seat since the latter had been elected county supervisor.

A development above Hendry’s Beach, a pretty blonde’s stock fraud scam, a baby-faced man who murdered a homeless man, and the leaf-blower ban showed up on the News pages. The A&E section unveiled the Film Fest’s 1987 poster, featured Ensemble Theatre Company’s production of A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking, and include movie reviews for Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It (“spunky, custom-tailored dark horse,” wrote Woodard) and the animated American Tail (“trite,” concluded George Delmerico, also the art director). 

It was a good time for going to the movies. Star Trek IV, The Color of Money, and Crocodile Dundee were at the Arlington while Sid & Nancy played the Riviera and Stand by Me showed in a Goleta building that’s now home to Bicycle Bob’s and The Imperial. There was even a Spanish-language screen on State Street at the Mission Theater (today Metro 4), where La Ruletera and Reto a la vida were playing. Or you could rent your own movie screen to watch videos at home for $20 a night, as advertised by DAC Video Productions.

The music scene was also pumping. Touring bands included Timbuk 3 (“The Future’s So Bright … ”) at Oscar’s (1129 State), Gene Loves Jezebel at UCSB’s Campbell Hall, and Everything but the Girl at the Lobero. The Pontiacs seemed to be playing every night somewhere, whether that was Ahzz or Gallagher’s, which also had repeat performances by The Humanics.

The Food section showcased Borsodi’s as “The Survivor” in Isla Vista, where the dining room featured a “trompe l’oeil of a ceiling ripped open to a lovely blue sky, an artistic testament to the 1970 Bank of America burning,” observed Martin Perlman, noting it attracted a “diverse clientele of counterculture survivors, foreign students, political activists, and those in search of a decent cup of coffee.”

Restaurant ads included the 10-course buffet with a free soda from Panda Chinese Restaurant at 515 State Street for $4.25, a Sunday brunch at the Elephant Bar by the airport for $8.95, and $1 for sake at Arigato in Victoria Court, where the rock ’n’ roll was free. Thanksgiving dinner was a popular promotion, like the choice of turkey, venison, duck, or hasenpfeffer with all the fixings (including champagne/wine) for $11.95 to $14.95 from the German House, where Sushi Teri is now on Bath.

Other ads offered a full computer setup (with hi-res amber screen and floppy disc drives) for $899 from Channel Data Systems in El Mercado Plaza and $7 per hour for a lane at Orchid Bowl, where Bowlero is now. Another was a call for models, over the age of 4, to compete in person later in Carpinteria. The back page ad was Captain Video selling 13-inch color TVs for $369, while the classifieds listed a ’47 Ford pickup for $2,900 and a ’71 VW Bug for $1,100, among dozens of other vehicles.

Personal ads were very much a thing, and just as entertaining to read today:

RESPONSIBLE 28yr. old woman w/ references seeking private location for small travel trailer. Rent, caretake, or…?

HANDSOME, VERY Successful, white male 25, 6’1″, athletic, seeks attractive, fit black, latin, Mexican, Oriental, female (18-33) for fun & friendship 

WHAT PIPES & TIMBRELS, what wild ecstasy? Female WXY, 30s, new to area, seeks friends, good times & happy, happy love.

ADVENTURESOME married lady is sought by a fun lovin’ business man who will respect you the day after.

As could be expected for a brand-new paper, a few of the pages offered their own perspectives on the merger. Woodard, writing a column called Night Light, penned it as a parable. “By golly if this wasn’t an old-fashioned paper war carrying on in an erstwhile hamlet of tranquility!” he wrote of the News & Review versus The Weekly bout. “You could smell the blood and the ink spilling on the streets. You could put your ear to the ground and hear the rumblings of pride and prejudice, of petty espionage and scooping frenzy. Lo, it was a good fight.”

Even the sports columnist Dana Brown — son of Bruce “Endless Summer” Brown — used his word count to lament the death of competition by the two weeklies merging, only to relish that the daily would now be their common foe. The photo that accompanied that story showed four men pushing a woman strapped to a bed down a city street.

“Bedridden, Kym Herrin gets a hand from The Santa Barbara Independent at Rocky’s Fifth Annual Bedrace, last Saturday,” read the caption. “The Independent team made it through the first two rounds before breaking the bed. Kym escaped injury.”

No other context was given.