In front of the Kenmore Square T station sits a squat, yellow news box, stuffed with six or seven slightly crumpled papers, each emblazoned with a Christmas-themed cartoon.

It’s been some time since Editorial Humor has published a new issue. Of course the paper, a biweekly that supplements its own articles with pages of syndicated editorial cartoons, has had its wind knocked out by the same drop in advertising that’s affected every other publication in the country. But its current dire financial straits have been compounded by publisher Dean Wallace Jr.’s commitment to battle for his First Amendment rights

Wallace has been a key combatant against last May’s vote by the Back Bay Architectural Commission to ban news boxes in that part of the city. (So has the Phoenix; see our coverage of the issue at www.bostonphoenix.com/pages/boston/newsbox_archives.htm.) Editorial Humor, on sale for 50 cents all over Greater Boston, relies heavily on the boxes as a means of distribution and income.

In early September, a preliminary injunction prevented the city from enforcing the ban until a lawsuit — initiated by Wallace and later joined by the Phoenix, its sister publication Stuff@Night, the Improper Bostonian, and the Weekly Dig — challenging its legality could be heard. That court date is currently slated for early March. But while his news boxes still stand on Arlington, Boylston, and Newbury Streets, in Wallace’s case the damage may already be fatal.

When the Beacon Hill Historical Commission got news boxes banned from that neighborhood in 1996, Wallace also made his opposition known. But this time, he knew the fight was crucial for his paper’s survival.

"On August 28 [right before the bans were to take effect], I had a real Hobbesian choice," he says. "I’d been working against what the city was trying to do before that, but if I opposed it now it was going to take a lot of time and effort away from my sales. If I didn’t oppose it, and they were allowed to sweep [up the news boxes] it would be a real infraction in the First Amendment, and that would be bad for all of us."

At first, Wallace tried to keep up the good fight, spending many hours with lawyers that might have been better spent improving his shoestring operation’s flagging ad sales. As a result, the advertising for Editorial Humor’s back-to-school issue, traditionally its biggest seller, was down 70 percent. "I more or less fell on my sword," says Wallace. Things certainly didn’t get better after September 11.

But don’t count Editorial Humor out just yet. One more issue will hit the streets next Wednesday, February 6. "Then we’ll be seeing if there’s any interest," says Wallace. When asked exactly what kind of interest he means, Wallace doesn’t mince words: "Interest in pulling out piles and piles of hundred-dollar bills."

Wallace would love to see an investor come forward who’d allow him to stay on as publisher. But he also wouldn’t be above ceding control of the paper to the right bidder. "This is my baby," he says. "I’ve spent 13 years with it. I’d like to see it continue, even if someone else was the publisher."

But when Wallace says ruefully that "fighting the city has been the greatest contribution to my going down," it seems as if he’s already prepared himself for the worst. Nonetheless, he feels his crusade against the news-box ban has been worth it, even if it only benefits other publications. Asked if he’ll take part in the March trial even if his own paper folds in the meantime, his reply is automatic: "Oh, yeah."