intrigueing: (Default)
Here's my overview of Issue #2 (first published in 1975) of the Star Trek TOS zine "Contact." I wrote about Issue #1 back here. This issue differs from the previous one mostly in that it has a larger variety of authors and artists. There are a lot more stories, and they have more variation in plot as well. The contents are pretty similar though - stories, art, several poems, songs, and the answers and winners of the games from Issue #1, plus a parody. Unfortunately, none of the stories in this issue were transcribed in regular text on contactzine.com, so you'll have to open the pdf on the page for issue #2 to read them. Issue #2 can be read as pdf and cbz over here, if you're interested. Fascinating stuff!

I like them better that way, to be honest -- I love the feeling of reading those old typed pages, with the same old typeface, formatting, and little visual quirks that the actual physical copy had. The little doodles, the way the poems' layout looks, etc. See for yourself! It has a very different and far more memorable effect than reading just the text copied into a modern blog post, stripped of its context. The feel is not nearly as palpable as the Zebra Three zine, since that was an actual physical vintage copy from 1979, and this is just an online PDF. Zebra Three I could hold in my hands and smell it and feel how soft the pages had been worn, how carefully I had to turn them, how old and faded the ink was, but it's still miles more "atmospheric" or whatever than a transcription of the text.

The artwork is leagues better than Issue #1. One of the artists (and poets) is Signe Langdon, who did a number of gorgeous illustrations for Zebra Three #1 and #3 as well. Some of the other illustrations, by Leslie Fish, have a really weird, distinctive woodcut-ish style that's pretty cool.

This issue was apparently dedicated to "Dr. Leonard McCoy, for the special contribution he brings to the Kirk/Spock relationship, and to DeForest Kelly, for making "Bones" such an integral part of the triad."

Awww!

Of course, in the actual zine content, there's just a couple of poems and one story (The Third Wheel) that really indicate this spirit. Most of them, like in issue #1, are focused on Kirk and Spock. However, it's really sweet to see how the editors and various authors have framed the "Kirk/Spock" relationship (btw, back here, lots of people back in this time apparently used the signage "Kirk/Spock" to just refer to the relationship, not to slash in particular) through McCoy's eyes.


All About That Bones )







intrigueing: (Default)
My first zine review was of the 1977 Starsky & Hutch zine "Zebra Three #1" which can be read here, if you're interested (always open to more comments!). However, since the zine not posted online, I unfortunately can't link to it and go "Read This!" The 1974-75 Star Trek TOS zines Contact #1 and #2 (and the rest of the issues), on the other hand, are posted online at contactzine.com - pdf and cbz scans are downloadable there, and several of the stories have been transcribed and posted in normal text too. I'm reviewing Issue #1 and Issue #2, so this time, you can read them yourselves if you want to see what I'm talking about. I'll review Issue #1 in this post, Issue #2 should be finished in a day or two (since this post was getting just way too long).

Briefly, from fanlore: Contact was perhaps the most influential Kirk & Spock relationship zine, and it has a well-deserved reputation for “heavy” stories that lavished a great deal of hurt/comfort on the characters...and the readers.

Yeah, that's pretty much Contact in a nutshell. It was all gen, mostly h/c, with a large number of proto-slashy fics. It was edited by two sisters, Nancy Kippax and Beverly Volker (both have since passed away, but Nancy Kippax has many glorious posts about old early fandom memories in a series called "Reminisce With Me" on her LJ.) Contactzine.com is run by Steven H. WIlson, Beverly Volker's son-in-law who is now a pretty big fanfic writer Star Trek tie-in writer and sci-fi profic writer. I peeked into the zine scans for the first time this past summer, and then read issue 1 and 2 cover to cover this October. While I'm a fanfic omnivore, gen is my biggest fandom love and my slash goggles have heavy-duty black spray paint on both lenses, so usually the only way I can ever really get into a slashy groove is when reading 100% unambiguous slash fics with a big black label reading "TYPE: SLASH" at the top, so if even I was eyebrow-raising Spock-style on multiple occasions, that's saying something. Not that every fic in these zines is like that, of course, but there's a distinct pattern.

Star Trek: The Original Series was one of my very first online fandoms. The very first fics - ever, in any fandom - I remember reading were the gen stories dating from 1975 by Sheila Clark and Valerie Piacentini at Scotpress.co.uk when I was 14. Back then I had absolutely no idea what a zine was, or for that matter what fanfic was, even though I'd been "writing" it in my head since I was 6 (fix-fics/missing-scene fics of Grimm's Fairy Tales, natch), so it was complete coincidence that some of the first fanfic I ever read was also some of the first fanfic ever published. However, given how interested I am now in fandom history, it's a pretty appropriate coincidence. I can't remember for the life of me what my reaction to the revelation that fanfic was a thing that existed outside my head was, but after all these years I still remember that my reaction to Scotpress was that I was taken aback by the description at the top: "stories mostly involve character interaction in an action-adventure format, leaning heavily on the relationship between Kirk, Spock and sometimes McCoy." I basically huffed "Sometimes McCoy? Why's Kirk and Spock the center of everything? Huh, these two chicks be crazy, with their weird Kirk & Spock obsession which sure as hell isn't shared by all TOS fans, right? Right?"

The Cult of Kirk & Spock, Kirk/Spock, and Kirk@Spock, if that's a thing )

Contact #1 The Party Post Deluxe )


intrigueing: (harley quinn wants you to put on a happy)

A few weeks ago, I ordered a zine. Well, two zines, actually.  Issue #1 and Issue #3 of the Starsky & Hutch zine Zebra Three. They were published way back in 1977 and 1979 and issue #1 was the first Starsky & Hutch zine to ever be published. I guess I'm a huge nerd, because I was like OMG HISTORY and think this stuff is cool.

If you don't know what a zine is, just go here or here, because this post is already too long, tbh. And if you don't know much about Starsky & Hutch (hey that rhymes!), skim this, because the info there is a hell of a lot more relevant to the interests of someone reading about fandom than stuff like wikipedia.

See, for the past year or so, I've been on a huge fandom history kick, waxing and waning depending on how busy I was. I re-read the MsScribe Story for the ninth or so time of course, but I started reading up on a lot of older stuff too -- information about the history of certain fandom/fanfic tropes, and of old fandoms I was in. (You can’t grasp the sheer awesome that is X-Files fandom without understanding Usenet.) Out of the fandoms I'm in (not counting Sherlock Holmes, whose fandom was just...different) the oldest ones are Star Trek TOS, M*A*S*H, Star Wars, and Starsky & Hutch. And the goldmine of info about these is fanlore.org It has been my new addiction, the past few months.

I got particularly fascinated by the fanlore pages that had loads of excerpts from various old Starsky & Hutch letterzines, which were the discussion forums of the time, arguing about analyzing the show and the characters and the fandom and sending in envy-inducingly long and detailed reviews of then-current popular/good fanfics. The biggest takeaway I got from all this nerdy research was that a) seriously, zines were fascinating things, and b) the text of lots of fanfic in those zines has never made it to the internet and that is the saddest thing. Obviously, I just had to get my hands on one. So I did, and read it.

There were a whole bunch of different aspects to this, uh, experience, I guess. So I separated them out by category so you don't have to read the whole thing if you're not interested. But really -- no matter how long it's been since posting when you stumble across this review, I just wanna say that if anyone who reads this has read this zine or the stories in it before, I would be delighted to have your input and opinions in the comments :) There's just not enough of it online!

 

Zines and Fandom History: in which I use the word “old” to describe stuff from the ‘70s several times and piss off everyone who remembers the decade )


The Content of the Zine: Let’s party-post like it’s…uh…1977? )


Review of “Bomb Scare:” In which I compare Fanon to folklore to sound more self-important, and also make wild generalizations about casefic )


Review of “Mojave Crossing:” In which I claim sublimity is impossible to define, but then spend six paragraphs yakking about it anyway. Also, musings about the hurt/comfort genre )

 



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