At its height, shortly before it went bankrupt in 1980, Big Rapids was functioning as an alternative independent distributor in the central and southern Michigan areas, selling a full line of magazines and paperbacks, as well as mainstream comics.
Among the periodicals distributed by Big Rapids were the Berkeley Barb, Fifth Estate, Creem, Rolling Stone, and High Times, in addition to a plethora of underground comix.
Moving their headquarters back to Detroit, Big Rapids was aggressive, often taking over the businesses of customers who ran up large debts (ironic, given that their delivery vehicles carried pictures of Karl Marx on the inside doors).
[1] At its height, Big Rapids was actually functioning as an alternative independent distributor in the Detroit and central and southern Michigan areas, selling a full line of magazines and paperbacks, as well as comics.
There was a scramble to fill the void; a couple of new companies that grew briefly from the wreckage lasted only briefly — Comic Kingdom (Bob Hellems' company in Detroit) and Common Ground Distributors (Robert Beerbohm's in the San Francisco Bay Area).