The Paper TrailNo one invested...they went years without making a profit. Was this publishing duo's path pigheaded or visionary?

Few inhabitants of mainstream USA expressed interest in anything"indie" before 1996, when Oscar-winning films likeFargoandShineengaged audiences with small budgetsand little-known actors. Younger consumers discovered indie in theearly '90s, when the once-underground "grunge"aesthetic infiltrated mass-market music, film and fashion. Butyears before anyone was watching obscure movies, and before kidsdeemed flannel-wearing fashionable, "grandma and granddaddy ofindie" Kim Hastreiter and David Hershkovits were pointingpeople in the direction of hip as publishers and editors ofPapermagazine. Never heard ofPaper(launched 16years ago) or Papermag.com (live in 1994) or Paper PublishingCo.'s 1999 bookFrom AbFab to Zen: Paper's Guide to PopCulture?That's probably because Hastreiter and Hershkovitshave always run their New York City company on a shoestring andaccepted little investment. But no one's ever told them what todo, either. And they like it that way.

The last time Hastreiter, 48, and Hershkovits, 52, answered toanyone was in 1981, right before former employerThe Soho WeeklyNews, aVillage Voice-esqe publication unique in itsstyle coverage, folded after its owners failed to focus on thedowntown scene about to erupt. "They were English anddidn't really understand New York City," says Hastreiter."They just couldn't deal with punk-rocker types with greenhair working for them."