Anyone else remember
this one? In 1976 and 1977, I was a regular reader of the short-lived
All About Star Trek Fan Clubs magazine - one of the most oddly-titled genre fan magazines ever. Although (obviously)
Trek-centric, it did occasionally touch on other sci-fi productions. Mostly, though, it covered
Star Trek fandom in all its pre-Internet Seventies forms, with fannish articles on conventions, collectibles, episode trivia, pull-out posters, interviews with the
Trek cast (and prominent
Trek fans!), fanzine reviews, and, of course, extensive fan club listings.
The layout and content was really quite amateurish - especially when compared to contemporaries
Starlog and
Fantastic Films - with no interior color, and it was printed on cheap newsprint. With its reliance on fan art and candid con photographs, it really did seem like a fanzine that somehow got free offset printing and then scored a national newsstand distribution deal. Still, as a 12-13 year old, it - in some ways even moreso than
Starlog - helped assure me that there were other people out there in the world that
loved Star Trek (if perhaps to an unhealthy extreme!).
I still have my copies of Issues 2, 4, and 6 (pictured above), originally purchased at the old Mr. Paperback bookstore at the Turnpike Mall in Augusta, Maine. #2 and #4 are really beat-up, yellowed and torn, but #6 is still in good shape. As I said above, while earnest and enthusiastic, it's a rather unprofessional little mag - but that kinda adds to its nostalgic 70s charm.
Man oh man. What next? "A Piece of the Action" newsletters from Bjo Trimble's Star Trek Welcommittee?!?!
ReplyDeleteWow!
These are wonderfully obscure and, that said, being a TREK nerd of the 1970s, I bought the first 3-4 issues off the rack in a Walden Books at Randall Park Mall on the East Side of Cleveland. This was back in the dark days of TREK fandom, when the possibility of the series ever returning would ebb and flow.
Hah, really nice. Although the pic in the bottom one looks more like Johnny Carson than William Shatner.
ReplyDeleteps re: the finite Space Babes post, maybe you could start making things up a bit. Pretending that Nicole Kidman played Wilma Deering, that sort of thing
...ahh. Someone else remembers this. I think I still have all the issues, somewhere in one of my boxes, next to equally obscure magazines like SPACE WARS, STAR ENCOUNTERS, and the like. Starlog and Fantastic Films were pro, but these things felt like they were homemade by a real "fan" in the basement...like ME back then. Good memories...
ReplyDeleteStill own a few of these. :-)
ReplyDelete