Happy 40th Anniversary, STARLOG!

Ahh... this stunning cover painting of Star Trek's Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock by Jack Thurston graced the first issue of Starlog magazine, back in August, 1976. Which means that this month marks 40(!) years since the debut of the 70's greatest science fiction media periodical, a magazine that was literally my bible for two decades.

(Actually, as former Starlog honcho David McDonnell points out in the comments below, the first issue actually went on sale in June of that Bicentennial year. I stand corrected. Still... better late than never!)

Starlog not only kept me informed of new and upcoming genre films and television, but opened my mind to the classic (and not-so-classic) productions of the past. It was in the pages of Starlog that I first discovered the films of George Pal, the television series of Irwin Allen, and the original Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon movie serials. It fed my insatiable hunger for behind-the-scenes information on special effects and gave me countless cool photographs of miniature spaceships and alien monster to obsess over.

Yeah, Starlog was an important part of my formative years... in many ways, the biggest part.

In retrospect, maybe I should have called this site Starblog...?

Remembering QUESTAR Magazine

Another Starlog wannabe, MW Communications' Questar ran for 13 issues between the Spring of 1978 and October, 1981. Originally a semi-pro fanzine covering SF fandom with original fiction, the magazine received national newsstand distribution with its 7th issue, and shifted emphasis toward the sort of science fiction film and TV coverage seen in magazines like Starlog and Fantastic Films.

Though slickly produced and nicely art-directed, Questar was editorially inconsistent and uninspired, with considerable sub-par writing. Still, it did include some good interviews with noted SF authors (and personalities like Forrest J. Ackerman), and even a comic strip or two.

I rarely saw Questar on local newsstands, but I'm pretty sure that I do have a couple of issues stashed away somewhere....

STAR TREK Meets LASERBLAST

Star Trek (with a weird, hybrid U.S.S. Enterprise), Laserblast (represented by David Allen's stop-motion aliens) and the Universal sci-fi classic, This Island Earth, collide in this cool magazine poster from the late 1970s. I'm sure one of you Star Kids out there can identify where this poster originally appeared and the artist who painted it... because I have no idea!

The artist's signature is indecipherable, unfortunately, and the style isn't instantly familiar.

If I had to guess as to its origins, I'd say it looks like something from the UK's Starburst or maybe the short-lived Science Fantasy Film Classics, or maybe Fantastic Films.

UPDATED: I knew I could count on you folks! Star Kids Martin Kennedy and Glen Mullaly have both identified it as being the work of John Allison. It appeared in Science Fantasy Film Classics #3 from the Summer of '78 (the one issue I didn't have!). Looks like my guess wasn't that far off. Thanks, guys!

Look-In Bionic Gallery

Hope you're all having a great Monday. To kick off the week, here's a gallery of Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman cover paintings for the British kid's magazine, Look-In. I'm pretty sure that all of these were painted by regular Look-In cover artist Arnaldo Putzu, and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm mistaken. Enjoy!

BUCK ROGERS (1979) Mediascene Cover By Steranko

Issue #34 of Jim Steranko's Mediascene tabloid magazine was a "Science Fiction Preview" issue, with coverage of Space: 1970 favorites Meteor, The Shape Of Things To Come, and... Buck Rogers. Here's a snapshot of Steranko's terrific cover illustration of the heroic Captain Rogers and friends/enemies!

SPACE TREK Magazine (1978) Cover Gallery

Yet another unimaginatively-titled genre mag from the publishing house behind such publications as Space Wars, Star Encounters, Star Battles and Star Warp, Myron Fass' Stories Layouts and Press Incorporated: the short-lived and confusingly-numbered Space Trek magazine from 1978. The eccentric Fass, who passed away in 2006, was a notorious publisher of low-end magazines and comics, the print equivalent of an exploitation film mogul, publishing anything and everything he thought might make a few bucks, especially if it appealed to the basest of tastes or could ride the coattails of some pre-established moneymaker.

As with it's corporate brethren, Space Trek was a cheapo Starlog knock-off, indistinguishable from Fass' other scifi mags, complete with recycled stories, B&W photos and fan art, haphazardly assembled and rushed to press by the bottom-feeding publisher to separate young, starstruck Star Kids from their allowances while the genre was still hot. How many of these did you buy?

ALL ABOUT STAR TREK FAN CLUBS Magazine... Revisited

About two years ago, I wrote about the fairly obscure fan magazine, All About Star Trek Fan Clubs (yeah, that was its official title). As I mentioned in that post, AASTFC was published in 1976-1977, ran six (I think) quarterly issues, and received national newsstand distribution.

The rather amateurish - though earnest and enthusiastic - magazine covered Star Trek fandom in all its pre-Internet/home video Seventies forms, with fannish articles on conventions, collectibles, episode trivia, pull-out posters, lots of fan art, interviews with the Trek cast (and prominent "Trekkers!"), fanzine reviews, and, as its clumsy title promised, extensive fan club listings.

It was an interesting magazine, and for a rural science fiction fan without access to conventions or fan clubs, it was a window onto a larger world of Trek (and sci-fi)  fandom. Anyway, I included scans of the covers of the three issues I owned with that previous post. I've since snagged scans of the other three issue covers, and thought I'd share them here. Enjoy!

Robby The Robot STARLOG 1978 TV Commercial

I've been looking for this clip for a long time, and thanks to a head's up from Jerome Wybon (of the Forgotten Silver blog), I can now share it here with the rest of you Star Kids!

I dimly recall that I saw this rare Starlog TV commercial just once, and I believe it was during the 1978 airing of the Saturn Awards show. Amazingly, the Saturn Sci-fi Movie Awards, presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, actually aired on one of our local television stations (WCSH) for two years during the height of the Space: 1970 era - in 1978 and '79. If I recall correctly, the 1978 awards were co-hosted by Mark Hamill and Caroline Munro! (The '79 show was hosted by William Shatner, and his performance of "Rocket Man" has since become legendary!)

Anyway, here's the great Robby the Robot pitching a subscription to Starlog magazine - the periodic Star Kid bible - in its late 70s prime!

SPACE WARS (1977-1980) Cover Gallery - Part 2

Issue #8

Join us as we once again venture into the domain of the downscale genre mags of publishing mogul Myron Fass' Stories Layouts and Press Inc., purveyors of cheap newsstand fodder, with a second batch* of the lurid Space Wars covers that beckoned seductively to our adolescent eyes from the newsstand racks and tempted our meager allowances out of our pockets. Starting with issue #8, Fass' editors/art directors switched away from painted covers to garish, sloppy photo montages, as you can see here....

Issue #9

Issue #10

Issue #11

Issue #13

Issue14

Issue #15

 * Check out the first Space Wars cover gallery HERE.

SPACE WARS (1977-1980) Cover Gallery - Part 1

Issue #1

Once again, we're braving the downscale genre mags of sleazy publishing mogul Myron Fass' Stories Layouts and Press Inc., purveyors of cheap newstand fodder. A while back, we reviewed the short-lived sci-fi mag, Star Encounters, but this time around, we're looking at his company's longest-running cheapo Starlog imitator - Space Wars.

Like its companion magazines, Space Wars was printed on the cheapest possible newsprint, with little-to-no interior color, and ugly, cluttered layouts. Still, for young genre fans back in those pre-home video/pre-Internet dark ages, Fass' 'zines helped sate the appetite for behind-the-scenes stories and sci-fi news between issues of Starlog and Fantastic Films.

Here's a gallery of some of the lurid cover layouts that caught our eyes from the newsstand racks and lured our meager allowances out of our pockets...

Issue #2

Issue #3

Issue #4

Issue #5

Issue #6

Issue #7

One of these days, I'll post the remaining Space War covers. How many of these did you have?

Warren CLOSE ENCOUNTERS (1977) Official Magazine

During the late Seventies, Jim Warren's Warren Magazines (publishers of Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella and Famous Monsters of Filmland) put out a number of "Official" tie-in mags for a variety of genre films, from Star Wars and Alien to Moonraker and Meteor.

Here's the cover of their Close Encounters Of The Third Kind magazine, with a striking close-up of Carlo Rambaldi's featured animatronic alien.

As I've said before, these publications were basically full-issue, Famous Monsters-styled "filmbooks," featuring detailed plot summaries, actor profiles and behind-the-scenes articles, all written for 13 to 15 year-olds. And... then there were the pages of "Captain Company" mail order ads in the back....

STAR ENCOUNTERS Magazine (1978)

Issue #1

Issue #2

Issue #3

"Brains and blobs from outer space!"

Well, I'm finally braving the sordid world of publisher Myron Fass' Stories Layouts and Press Inc., and its many cheapo Starlog rip-offs. The eccentric Fass, who passed away in 2006, was a notorious publisher of low-end magazines and comics, the print equivalent of an exploitation film mogul, publishing anything and everything he thought might make a few bucks, especially if it appealed to the basest of tastes or could ride the coattails of some pre-established moneymaker.

In the mid-70s, that meant the burgeoning genre of sci-fi film fandom and its newsstand herald, Starlog magazine. Fass' Stories Layouts and Press Inc. company published at least five different ongoing genre film mags - including the derivatively-titled Space Wars, Space Trek, Star Warp, Star Battles... and this 3-issue wonder, Star Encounters.

As with the majority of his other titles, it was printed on the cheapest possible newsprint, with little-to-no interior color, and ugly, cluttered layouts. Fass' sci-fi mags were virtually indistinguishable from each other, as they all had the same editors, contributors and production staffs. They even used the same articles quite often (not to mention, recycling quite a number of features from the company's plentiful UFO magazines). His company was also notorious for paying its contributors peanuts... but that didn't stop aspiring writers and artists from taking their chances. It was national newsstand exposure, after all.

I had a number of Space Wars and Space Trek issues, and I think I had all of these, too.

Warren Magazines ALIEN (1979) Collector's Edition

Warren Publishing, publishers of Famous Monsters Of Filmland, Vampirella, Eerie and Creepy, put out several authorized, B&W "collector's" magazines in conjunction with major genre films of the Space: 1970 era. Among these were Moonraker, Meteor, and Alien. These were basically full-issue, Famous Monsters-styled "filmbooks," featuring a long, detailed plot summary, actor profiles and behind-the-scenes articles, all written for 13 year-olds. Which, of course, was pretty much the exact target audience.

Each of these Warren collector's magazines also had plenty of ads in the back for Warren's mail-order outfit, The Captain Company, which offered thousands of genre products - from Warren magazine back-issues to paperback novelizations, posters, models, action figures, masks, t-shirts and LPs. Looking at the representative Captain's Co. ad above, I'm still amazed how many kid-targeted items of merchandise were licensed by 20th Century Fox for an R-rated horror film. Such a thing would hardly raise an eyebrow today, but in the 70s...?

Caroline Munro in Mediascene (1979)

Issue #37 of Jim Steranko's Mediascene tabloid magazine from the Spring of 1979, featuring Starcrash's Caroline Munro on its cover. The issue featured an article on the stunning Caroline, covering her appearances in a variety of 70s genre films, including The Spy Who Loved Me, The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad, Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter, At The Earth's Core, etc.

STAR TREK Giant Poster Book (1976) Cover Gallery

Another example of how the original Star Trek had become a much larger phenomenon in the Seventies than it ever had during its original run, were the sheer number of nationally-distributed newsstand magazines devoted to the show. Virtually every issue of Starlog and Fantastic Films had one Trek article or more, of course, but then there were mags like the awkwardly-titled All About Star Trek Fan Clubs and this monthly fold-out poster magazine, which ran for at least 16 issues, from the Fall of 1976 to early 1978. Each issue had a handful of articles and would unfold to make a gigantic poster - basically a big, grainy, 34" x 22"  frame blow-up from the show.

Here's a gallery of some of the covers. Enjoy:

I had about a half-dozen of these issues, including a couple not pictured above. I had the poster of Uhura in her "Mirror Mirror" alternate universe uniform on my bedroom wall for several years.  Hard to believe now, but I thought a buck for one magazine - especially one that was so thin (because it was one huge sheet of paper folded over twice) - was a lot to pay back then, especially when that same buck could buy me four 32-page comic books. Ah... childhood economics....