A number of people who later went on to become key members of the underground comix scene — including Frank Stack, Gilbert Shelton, and Jaxon — were Texas Ranger editors and contributors during the period 1959–1965.

Seeing itself as a complement to the campus newspaper The Daily Texan, the Ranger focused on humor, cartoons, and images of young women on its covers.

From early on until late in its run, the magazine featured a female UT student on the cover as the so-called "Girl of the Month" or "GOM.

[3] Over the years The Texas Ranger often drew the ire of UT's administration for its targeted satire and occasionally risqué content.

Gag cartoonist Rowland B. Wilson drew cartoons for The Texas Ranger during this same period, a number of which were reprinted by Dell's 1000 Jokes in an ongoing feature, "Varsity Varieties".

[3] Although Stack graduated in 1959, starting in 1962, (using the pen-name Foolbert Sturgeon) he published his strip The Adventures of Jesus in The Texas Ranger (as well as early counterculture publications like The Austin Iconoclastic and The Charlatan).

Singer Janis Joplin, at that point a freshman art student at UT, hooked up with the Rangeroos and was even listed on the masthead of a few issues of the Ranger, although she never contributed to any articles.

[13] And by 1968–1969, with Feds 'N' Heads, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and the formation of Rip Off Press, Shelton had become an important figure in underground comix.

[14] Due to poor sales, The Ranger was closed down (alongside two other UT campus publications) by TSP in Jan. 1972;[15] it published its final issue in April of that year.