Though small, San Francisco-based RE/Search is credited with beginning a fringe publishing phenom, one that includes Los Angeles publishers Feral House and Amok Dispatch, and Juno Books in New York, which was founded by former RE/Search co-editor Andrea Juno in 1996.

[V. Vale] never expected to have such wide-ranging impact. The UC Berkeley graduate had no career aspiration other than working as a clerk at City Lights Books when he started Search & Destroy. Vale put together the magazine with an IBM Selectric II correcting typewriter he used after hours at the bookstore. Using money he solicited from legendary beatnik Allen Ginsberg and City Lights founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Vale was able to print his first issue but had to rely on the money he made through benefit concerts to keep the venture going.

Two books, including an early work by avant-garde feminist novelist Kathy Acker, were published under the RE/Search moniker, but it's the 1982 book about William S. Burroughs that is generally recognized as the first RE/Search publication. It featured excerpts from Burroughs' novels, original photos and an in-depth interview that begins with the question, "You see Outer Space as the solution to this cop-ridden planet?"