You know that shittty economy you’ve been hearing all about, the one that’s forced you to switch to store-brand peanut butter, the one that’s got you rationing your gas, the one that may have you laid off and questioning every step in your life leading up to this point — well, it’s finally taken a bite out of the Weekly Volcano, too.



There are changes coming. Next week, when you pick up the Weekly Volcano, you’ll find that it’s packaged as one with the Fort Lewis Ranger — a paper also produced by Swarner Communications geared toward our community’s military population, and the paper that originally spawned the Volcano. You’ll literally flip through the Ranger to get to the Volcano, which — aside from this obviously substantial difference — won’t look much different once you get to it. It’ll be tighter in a few places, and the layout will be slightly tweaked, but it’ll be the Volcano you’ve come to expect … except, of course, it’ll be joined at the hip with the Ranger. The money this will save us on printing is substantial, and faced with a decision of either laying people off, drastically reducing content, and altering our vision, or combining the two papers to trim costs — we chose the latter.



The Volcano started as the arts and entertainment insert of the Ranger, and throughout our lifespan as a paper — from our humble, folded in the middle beginnings to recent high water marks — like our exposés on the Northwest Detention Center, the Evergreen police rifle debate, Jesse “the Traveller” Hill and the Pierce County budget debacle — we’ve remained inserted in the Ranger. It may seem like an odd pairing, but we’ve been doing it for almost eight years and don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. The voice you’ve read distributed separately on the streets of the South Sound in the Volcano has always also been part of the Ranger.



There’s no sense in spinning this. My goal as editor of the Weekly Volcano has always been the truth — or at least the truth as the Volcano staff and I see it. I’ve tried to remove as much of the barrier as possible that typically exists between reader and source. The Volcano is one of you, and — more importantly — you are the Volcano. Have we been perfect? Not even close. But every step of the way the entire Volcano staff and I have devoted ourselves to giving Tacoma and the South Sound the legitimate alt press weekly it deserves.



Will being joined with the Ranger make this quest more difficult? Of course it will. I’m certainly not delusional. While the Ranger is independently owned and is in no way shape or form controlled by the military — I’d be silly to sit here and think many readers wont be a little caught off guard by flipping through military news to get to the Volcano. How could they not be? The military isn’t exactly synonymous with questioning authority and screwing with The Man — two things we pride ourselves on at the Volcano. Some readers will inevitably be turned off.



There’s no doubt it’s going to be strange, and weird, and maybe feel a little funky at first. Rest assured — we feel it too. But faced with a choice of giving up — on our vision and on everything we’ve ever tried to stand for — or surviving to fight another day — a day (hopefully sooner rather than later) when we can once again distribute the Volcano independently of the Ranger — we chose the latter.



Come along for the ride, won’t you? These are dark and interesting times we’re living in. Let’s ride this bitch out.