[2] The paper's design, in its first years, was characterized by Dadaistic montages and absurdist, non-sequitur headlines,[3] including regular invocations of the "Intergalactic World Brain.

The East Village Other was co-founded in October 1965 by Walter Bowart, Ishmael Reed (who named the newspaper),[citation needed] Allen Katzman, Dan Rattiner, Sherry Needham, and John Wilcock.

Starting in 1969, Coca Crystal would write about politics, women's issues, and personal events for the East Village Other, many of which earned her the title "slumgoddess".

Beckman contacted his buddy Gilbert Shelton from back at the University of Texas at Austin, who mailed in an occasional strip called Clang Honk Tweet!

[9]During 1969, EVO published eight issues of Gothic Blimp Works, an all-comics tabloid with some color printing, billed as "the first Sunday underground comic paper".

Vaughn Bodé was the founding editor, with early issues featuring work by Bodé, Crumb, Deitch, Robbins, Rodriguez, Spiegelman, Joel Beck, Roger Brand, Ron Haydock, Jay Lynch, Larry Hama, Michael Kaluta, George Metzger, Ralph Reese, Steve Stiles, Robert Williams, S. Clay Wilson, Bernie Wrightson and Bhob Stewart (who became Gothic Blimp Works' second editor).