#old trek zines

[existentialcrisistime]

Look what arrived! I won these three Star Trek zines for an absolute bargain price on eBay (£2.50 each, I was the sole bidder), and I'm so happy to have them

Plak Tow is a gen TOS anthology, this issue from 1982 and featuring a story by Della Van Hise of Killing Time fame. Cover art by Christine Myers

Obsession is a Kirk-centric zine, this issue was the final and published in 1984, featuring a few mildly spicy pull-out pinup style Kirk art pieces. Cover art by Barbara Walker

Otherwhere Otherwhen is a K/S slash zine with a focus on AU stories, this issue published in 1992. Cover art by Marilyn Cole

[pavel-chekov-appreciator]

I love this trope I've noticed in AOS k/s fic where the author will put in one or two lines to mention Uhura and Spock having, usually at some unspecified point in the past, broken up amicably.

And it's always either just a vague "amicable breakup" or, if it is clarified why, it's like. They realized they were looking for different things out of a relationship, or they weren't as compatible as they originally thought, or Spock realized he was gay. Some super normal mundane reason to end a relationship, nothing dramatic. And then it's usually clarified or implied that they stayed really good friends after.

It's so refreshing because I very clearly remember the fandom days of irrationally hating and bashing on the female character who "got in the way" of your gay ship.

[sponeszine]

Search for Spock - Released June 1, 1984

This First of June will be the 40th anniversary of Search for Spock (and all the Spones goodness of this movie).

(Since there's already so much Spones creating going on, we're not making an official event. However if you happen to create something to celebrate the 40 year anniversary, we will be tracking #SFS40 & #SearchForSpock40. It may also be a great prompt to make something related to SFS for Spones Day on June 26th!)

@fuckyeahspones @sponesevents

[flippyspoon]

From: from The Legacy of K/S in Zines: 1991-1995: Publisher by Publisher (as found on Fanlore):

Front cover of issue #26, by Dragon -- "The cover of Naked Times 26 definitely deserves a second look. It’s by Dragon, and portrays a long-haired Spock with a tiny braid in front of one ear, a high pony-tail on the other side, and a warm smile. It’s really hard not to return that smile with one of your own! Also, this is the last Naked Times zine that employs borders around the text of stories, a different one for each tale. The use of borders was a long-standing tradition in the older zines. It added interest to the pages, and was useful in allowing a reader to quickly identify what story she was reading, but it also definitely cut down on the usable page-space for words.

[sequoiadoodle]

Would anyone be interested in a Mariner/Boimler zine?

[dead-beef]

Okay so let's say I may have got my hands on some original vintage Star Trek fanzines - how would I go about putting these online?

[rubbertplant]

who do you think was the first person to make the trek science division symbol gay.....

[bogvalley]

Working on a couple collage pieces for a current project and I kind of really liked this one that turned out star trek themed because like half of the magazines I own are star trek magazines

[sp0o0kylights]

Give meee: an Eddie who went into a small little bookshop on an Indie trip and stumbled across an in person fandom meeting. 

It's mostly Star Trek, and also mostly women, but the stories they have are nothing like Eddie's ever read. 

He's barely a teenager, and already protective of himself and his real identity--but everything he's ever wanted is written down, right here, on a little zine with Kirk and Spock doodled on the cover. 

They’re not--it’s not obvious, that they’re what he is, but the story itself is blatant and Eddie ends up being so obviously close to tears, he accidentally outs himself without ever saying a word. 

(He also ends up on the mailing list, then being sent home with several hand printed copies of all kinds of zines.) 

Eddie would remain on this list well past his third senior year in high school. 

Past bats, and Vecna and Steve fucking Harrington. 

Flash forward to his first apartment.The tiny one he shares with Steve when they followed Nancy and Robin to college. 

Steve knows Eddie’s gay. 

Or rather, Steve has been told, but Eddie's still pretty clammed up about it. He's not yet where Robin is, ready to bemoan her loveless existence while draped over their crappy, thrifted couch.

He makes jokes and he flirts and he absolutely says things he shouldn't, but none of it is real. 

It's flash. Showmanship. 

It's the persona that yes, is him, but Eddie consciously built it. There’s nothing soft or gooey there, nothing anyone can use to hurt him. 

So when he comes home and sees that plain, padded envelope with the neatly printed label on the counter, torn wide open and flat without its contents?

 Eddie panics. 

His heart thunders in his chest, vision tunneling as adrenaline kicks through him. 

He wants to bolt-- should bolt--except ever since he almost died his brain no longer obeys him. 

Not when it comes to running, anyway. 

Instead it fights him to a standstill, freezing his feet right to the living room floor. 

The urge is still there. 

To run, and save face the cowards way. 

Vanish before Steve could get at a part of him that had once kept Eddie out of Wayne’s trailer for two days, until the old man had hunted him down and made him come home, huffing about how he’d love Eddie no matter what but he better never disappear like that again. 

(Which Eddie did anyway, and of everything that happened with Vecna, it’s that he regrets the most. The stories he heard of Wayne putting up posters. Squaring off with angry, too-righteous townies, and--)

A sniffle jerks him out of his thoughts. 

Eddie gasps, entirely unsure of when he stopped breathing. Stumbles back and turns, right in time for Steve to come out of his room and amble down their hallway. 

One hand rubs at his eyes, and the other is--the other has…

Eddie identifies the cheaply printed, stapled zine immediately. It's one he's wanted to read for a while now, solely because it features a story about Kirk and Spock being stuck in a cave together on a planet that has  bat-like, vicious animals on it. 

Kirk gets bitten after something goes wrong with the transporter and, look, it’s carthiatic okay!? Sue a guy for wanting to read a romance about a situation he identifies with! 

Steve looks up from the zine and startles. 

For a second his eyes go dark and flat, the same way Eddies and Robins and Nancy's and everyone's does when caught off guard. 

It's gone in a flash though, Steve visibly relaxing when he clocks that it's just Eddie. 

He keeps the zine pressed to his sweater clad chest,  and huffs out a laugh that's half forced and half pure relief.

“Fuck Eds, you scared me! I didn’t know you could be quiet.” 

“Uh huh.” Eddie manages, voice sounding totally and absolutely normal and not at all ten octaves higher than it usually is. 

They stare at each other for a second. Long enough that Steve's eyebrows crinkle in the middle, which is the first hint that he’s beginning to worry, and Eddie really cannot handle Steve being worried right now.  

“What's--” Eddie’s voice cracks and he coughs to recover. “what's that?” 

Steve frowns at him for a moment, until Eddie gestures at the zine in his hands. 

“Oh!”

Steve holds it up, as if to show it off. 

“It's a little book Robin got in the mail. It has a bunch of stories in it. They're normally boring as fuck but this one's from Star Trek.” 

Hearing the words ‘Star Trek’ out of Steve’s mouth shouldn’t be weird, not anymore, when Eddie and Dustin have been on a two man mission to nerdify Harrington as much as possible, but it still kicks like a mule to hear him say such things without any prompting. 

“You know what Star Trek is?”

“Eddie,” Steve tuts, tongue clicking in his mouth. “everyone knows what Star Trek is. It’s nerd shit, but like, old nerd shit. My grandparents used to watch it when I stayed over. This?” 

 He shakes the zine, so hard Eddie wants to snatch it away from him.

 “This isn't nerd shit. This is excellent.”

Steve gives the zine an appreciative glance and hell, maybe Eddie accidentally walked into another dimension. 

He’s been trying to get Steve to read more, rediscover the joys of books the public school system does its best to destroy, but until now Steve hasn’t really taken to it. 

Enjoys when Eddie reads aloud sometimes, and has started to bug Robin to do it for him too, but otherwise?

Eddie’s nerve seen him with anything that had the written word on it that wasn’t a cooking or car related magazine. 

“Honestly,” Steve’s saying, “I think Robs fucked up, this isn't her style at all. She’s gonna be pissed.” 

He eyes the thing appreciatively, like the gift it is. 

“I'm stealing it the second she figures that out.” He adds decisively. 

“You like it?” Eddie asks. 

“Mmm.” 

“Even though it's--it's got…Kirk…” 

Steve's frowning at him again. “What?” 

“It's queer man. It's really queer.” 

Steve peers at him, the crinkle back in his eyebrows. 

“I know. Wait, how do you--” 

And well. It’s now or never. 

“It's mine.” Eddie says in a rush.

“No it's not.” Steve scoffs, and okay, maybe this is a dream. Eddie pinched himself twice already, but perhaps a third time would wake him up?

(It does not.)

“it was even addressed to Robin. Well,” Steve has one hand on a hip now, his default position when arguing, “Robbie, but she goes by that sometimes.” 

Which Robin does, but not in the fucking mail.

Without a word, Eddie turns and goes for the envelope the zine came in. 

Steve follows, invading Eddie’s space to peer over his shoulder (and that’s Eddie’s fault too, that closeness, but he didn’t think it would be turned on him in a moment like this--) 

There's a sticker on the envelope’s label.

 It’s barely hanging on, half of it curled into the air.  Round and yellow, with little black lines, it becomes immediately obvious that one of Robin's smiley face stickers has migrated again. 

They're all over the apartment. Remnants of a phase she went through after she stole a roll of them from her and Steve’s job at a local toy store.

This one had clearly jumped ship from its original spot (likely on the ceiling somewhere), and was now firmly over the E in Eddie's name. 

‘Ddie’ still isn't exactly ‘Obbie’  but--

Steve leans around, snatching the envelope up and bringing it close to his face. 

Far too close, like he can't read it, eyes squinting as he examines the label--and suddenly Eddie knows exactly what happened. 

He laughs, an explosion of noise that's half hysterical and half disbelief. 

Steve looks at him. 

“What?” 

“Oh my God,” Eddie says, one finger jabbing in the air in the vague direction of Steve’s nose. “I told you you needed glasses!” 

“I do not!” Steve protests immediately, but his eyes are darting around the envelope. 

He’s scrambling to figure out what Eddie’s seeing, trying desperately to find a hole that can prove himself right. 

Eddie decides to help him, by plucking the smiley sticker off the envelope. 

“See?” He jeers, and shit okay, maybe his life isn’t over just yet. “It says Eddie, not Robbie!” 

“You guys have got to start using your government names for this shit.” Steve bitches, but it’s weak.

Eddie feels a grin coming on, and lets it overtake his face. 

“So...Kirk and Spock huh?” 

“They’re cute.” Steve defends instantly, before sighing his defeat and tossing the envelope on the table. 

The zine he keeps in his hands. 

Eddie crosses his arms and leans against their rickety table. “Even though they’re both guys?” 

“I thought we were past this!” Steve whines. “I went to a gay bar with Robin last weekend!” 

Which is news to Eddie. 

“You didn’t invite me?” He gasps, feigning hurt by putting a hand over his heart. 

Truthfully he still hasn’t fully recovered--is play acting himself, almost, but is rapidly coming around to the idea of Steve appreciating queer fanfiction. 

“We did!” Steve rolls his eyes so dramatically his whole head moves. “We absolutely did, You said,” 

Here Steve’s voice pitches into a mockery of Eddie’s  that he will not give him points for, even if it is a little hilarious, “Me? At some loser bar? Fuck no, I’ve got a campaign to write. Starbuck, don’t you have homework?” 

“I didn’t know that was a gay bar!” 

“You did! Robin told you!” 

“Okay well, I wasn’t listening!”  

“Clearly. I keep telling you we need a fucking--system or, I don’t know, a code word or something!”  

“Yeah well, when you wanna make us a safe word for conversations, big boy, you let me know.” 

They’re both laughing a little now, this argument veering into familiar territory, with Eddie not really listening and Steve mocking him for it later. (As well as vice versa, with startling regularity.) 

“You really like it though?”  Eddie says after the laughter winds down, gesturing to the zine still clutched in Steve’s hand. 

“Yeah.” Steve confirms, easy as he’s said anything else. Like this isn’t embarrassing, or almost worse than the time Wayne found Eddie’s porno mags and alphabetized them as a joke. 

“It's part of a mail tree. I’m supposed to send it on to the next person when I’m done with it. I make copies though,” Eddie rushes to add, because Steve is now clutching the little booklet to his chest in horror, as if Eddie was about to rip it out of his hands. “If you like I’ll show you my other ones?” 

Steve eases his grip, giving Eddie the little smile he makes that makes his stomach flip. 

“That’d be cool.” 

(Later, Steve pokes at Eddie’s thigh from where they’re both sprawled on Eddie’s bed, Steve having switched the new zine out for one of Eddie’s copies. “Are you going to laugh at me if I ask you to read some of these aloud?” 

“Only if you don’t laugh when I ask you to take me to that gay bar.” 

“Deal, but on the grounds you’re barred from making fun of my flirting attempts. Robin doing it was bad enough.” 

“Well you deserve it if you’re hitting on women at a gay bar, Stevie.” 

“I wasn't hitting on women you asshole.” Steve says and oh.

Oh.

Eddie feels the floor drop out from under him for the second time that day. 

At least this time it’s not fear that thunders through him, but possibility.) 

[jesuisunghost]

Seeing old star trek zines is so fucking cool. Like, i cant explain it properly but like, seeing something you love also be loved by people way before you were born is just so cool. Its a very specific vibe but like. Agh.

[existentialcrisistime]

Inside cover art from Plak Tow 7 by Christine Myres, published 1982

[spirk-trek]

Sharing the Sunlight Fanzine & Novel | Drawings by Chris Soto, 1992

Entire work available to read here!

Editorial note from author Jenna Sinclair:

"I have been in love with the Star Trek universe and its characters for twenty-five years now. I wrote my first 'novella' in the seventh grade. Over the years I wrote sporadically, mostly in my head, never, ever satisfied, knowing that there was an elusive 'something' I was unable to grasp. But then I discovered K/S! Unbelievably, it took me a good twenty-three and a half years to do it! I felt as if I had been working on a puzzle all that time, and finally the pieces flew naturally into place. Like just about everybody else, I became obsessed. In six months, I read about 200 zines (yes, I was broke and suffering from eyestrain), and then I sat down to write an established relationship short story, as a way of saying 'thank you' to all the K/S authors, artists, and editors who had given me so much pleasure. That story refused to be written, and this first time novel came flowing from my pen instead. The first 120 pages were composed on a 25 year old typewriter which lacked a 'k,' a '/', and a '-'. You try writing a novel with Kirk, Spock, and other fairly essential words without a 'k'!"

[olderthannetfic]

I've always felt that fandom old is as much of a mindset as anything else. I'm in my early twenties but was online far younger than was probably ideal, and I was around that 'fandom old' culture and absorbed a lot of it from lurking on forums and such. I tend to get along better with the 30+ year olds in my fandom because of it- less because of age itself but because of ye olde shared mindsets around things like DL:DR, ship and let ship, yknmkato, review/comment culture, et cetera. All of which feel like simple concepts that young/new fandom folk would want to practice as well, but alas.

--

I often think of it as a certain "I am so tired" vibe. Haha.

Okay, but in all seriousness, it has to do with paradigm shifts. Were you around—or not just around but fully absorbing a culture—before The Great Change?

But which paradigm shift is The Great Change?

On tumblr in general, it's probably being active up till like 2012 and knowing the vibe of old tumblr fandom vs. the current era of puritywank and porn bans.

On my tumblr, it's definitely having been in fandom pre-tumblr. For most individual commenters, that's going to mean Livejournal. (This is because LJ fandom numbers dwarfed ye olde zine fandom numbers just as modern AO3 numbers dwarf LJ numbers and because ye olde zine fans who are still alive are posting about Starsky's ass on Facebook in between looking at grandkid photos. They mostly aren't reading my tumblr. Yes, yes, except for you and you and you who will immediately jump in to say you're here, young whippersnapper.)

In some other context, it's going to mean pre-LJ or pre-internet or pre-Star Trek taking over the book SF cons and being booted out to be "Media Fandom" or whatever. There's no one flavor of Olds. You're only Old when there's someone New to be old in comparison to.

Either that or when you want to complain about your knees.

[britedark]

i dont know if anyone will see this because i havent been active on tumblr in 8 years and now i just stalk but,

WHERE do i go to find old star trek fics? Should i just be seeking out old zines? I guess i’m interested in anything (spirk generally, i’ve only watched TOS so far) before 2009, but what i’m really itching for is that old genre defining shit from like the 70s or something.

I am just so curious about anything trek fandom before i was born.

[oldschoolfrp]

With yesterday’s news from Atomic Mass Games that they are ending production of Star Wars X-Wing and Armada, it is a good time to remember 2 truths that many gamers overlook:

All games based on licensed properties require licences that cost money up front to obtain and more money over time to continue to keep active. From day one, publication of any licensed game should be expected to end during the tail end of the game’s profitability, when income dips below the cost of the license.

There’s no such thing as a ‘dead game,’ as long as you own the game and still want to play. This is especially true for miniature collections.

Licensed games are under pressure to earn money quickly before shutting down, and often have a production life much shorter than successful games based on original, generic, or historical concepts. The X-Wing games had a remarkably successful run considering the economic challenges.

The most notable exception to the rule is the Star Fleet line of games which relied on a very generous and open-ended license, apparently with no expiration date. This has been attributed to Paramount believing Star Trek was a ‘dead property’ in the 1970s. They made an agreement with author Franz Joseph which gave Franz Joseph Design the rights to everything in his Star Fleet Technical Manual. FJD was able to license those rights to Armadillo Design Bureau/Task Force Games at a relatively low cost.

Since then other rights holders have been more careful. When Grenadier made the first official Star Wars miniatures for West End Games’ line of products in the late 80s (above), it was Lucas Film Limited’s initials that appeared on every figure base, clearly reminding us who remained in charge.

As for ‘dead’ games, I still own copies of WEG’s out-of-print games and can play with Grenadier’s figures that I already collected. I also can use those figures with any other rules I choose, which is a major benefit of collecting miniatures for a favorite theme. Many of the new ‘miniature agnostic’ indie games available as PDFs or zines encourage digging out old figures and returning them to the table.

A reasonable counterpoint for gamers in the US is that there are few independent clubs here, where organized public play depends on game stores willing to set space aside for tables and priority is given to games the store can sell. I would not be surprised to see an immediate end to X-Wing events at those stores that were still hosting leagues and tournaments.

But for those willing to take ownership of their own fun, you might find some good deals on spaceships in clearance sales.

[raisinchallah]

you know i dont know how id approach such art but i feel kinda like a fake star trek fan having not drawn kirk/spock art even just as an intellectual exercise cuz im so enamored with how much love went into reproducing those pen and pencil drawings in old zines and such but also you know its big slash its basic its everywhere its going with the crowd would it make me a sellout going from making my reputation thru drawing obscure star trek femslash to draw kirk/spock should i balance things out and draw b’elanna helping seven rewire herself to keep the scales in order?