#devra langsam

As we explored in the last post, fanfiction has been around for a while, but before Star Trek, it wasn’t really ever in fanzines. Fiction about fans was, but usually not fanfiction in the way that we consider it to be now. In 1967, that all changed for good.

Star Trek had just started airing its second season in September, the same month the first issue of the fanzine Spockanalia. Created by Devra Langsam and Sherna Comerford, the zine was initially meant to be a one-shot, but the second issue was published in April of the following year. It was quickly joined by many, many more zines, each with their own stories and other content.

^ The front cover of Spockanalia Issue #1, featuring Mr. Spock illustrated by Kathy Bushman.

ST-Phile 1 was published January 1968, and the first issue of Warp Nine: A Star Trek Chronicle dropped in February 1969. In June of the same year, Ruth Berman released T-Negative, a zine named for Mr. Spock’s blood type, that would go on to run for 10 years. In Joan Marie Verba’s book Boldly Writing: A Trekker Fan and Zine History, 1967-1987, you can find a comprehensive history of the first 20 years of Star Trek fanzines.

^The front cover of Boldly Writing by Joan Marie Verba.

Star Trek was the first fandom to make fanfiction (as we know it today) an integral, collaborative part of its culture. Prior to ST, this kind of fanfic wasn’t really published in science fiction zines. So many people wrote fanfiction about Star Trek that there were multiple zines dedicated to fic alone (Jamison, 2013).

Not only was Star Trek the first fandom to routinely publish modern fanfiction in fanzines, but it is also home to the first published slash fic, unsurprisingly featuring Kirk and Spock. The story, “A Fragment Out of Time '' by Diane Marchant, was published in the 1974 third issue of the fanzine Grup. It was unique not only because it was most likely the first slash fic, but also because it was initially unclear as to the genders/sexes of the two people having sex in the story. Marchant cleared this up in Grup’s next issue, and it’s now definitively clear that the two characters in the story are Kirk and Spock.

Another groundbreaking fanfic is the Kraith series, which was originally authored by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, co-author of the first published book on media fandom Star Trek Lives!. The Kraith series explored the planet Vulcan and its society, and several other authors helped to write installments of the story over time.

Despite the fact that the original TV series aired its final episode in June of 1969, Star Trek definitely isn’t a dead fandom; new and OG fans are still active and new installments of official Trek media are being released constantly. Just because a fandom is older doesn’t mean it has any less life in it!

Happy reading!

-KP

Further Reading:

The Sandy Hereld Memorial Digitized Media Fanzine Collection

It cost 50 cents, was printed on construction paper and was published in 1967. It is one of the most widely circulated Star Trek fanzines, having a print run of over 25,000 copies. Each issue of 'Spockanalia' had many examples of Roddenberry, Fontana, DeForest Kelley, and other Star Trek creators' interest, if not direct, comments and assistance. By issue #3, Gene Roddenberry and his production staff had taken even more note of the fanzine and submitted a letter to the editors stating: 

"SPOCKANALIA is "required reading" for everyone in our offices, and I am most distressed that you were not told of this before. We have used all the extra copies to make sure that every new writer, and anyone who makes decisions on show policy have read your fanzine, and Juanita Coulson's ST-PHILE. The reason for this is that if we all understand what the fans see in the show, and try to understand why they are fans at all, we can then continue to hold those fans. Certain fanzines, and yours is one of them, have a mature and well- written format that is very instructive to our staff." 

You can read more about the fanzine on Fanlore: https://fanlore.org/wiki/Spockanalia