In the pre-internet, pre-social media days, Starlog magazine was the go-to place for sci fi and fantasy fans to keep up with what was going on with the genre and look back and movies and TV shows from the past.
What Is It?
For over thirty years, Starlog magazine reported on the worlds of science fiction and fantasy, and for a fair amount of that time, it was the leading source for genre news, information, interviews, and behind-the-scenes stories. This magazine carried some of the very first glimpses of Star Wars, publishing some of Ralph McQuarrie’s concept art before most fans knew who George Lucas was (other than the director of some teen-hijinks film called American Graffiti). And it chronicled the rise of the Blockbuster Era giving us scoops on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Alien, Blade Runner, and many many more. It also delivered retrospectives on favorite TV series which delved into the making of these programs and often included the much cherished (at that time) episode guides. Starlog ruled science fiction and fantasy from the late ’70s into the ’80s and remained relevant into the nineties even if it seemed to have slipped a bit in quality by that time. And then like so many other magazines, it succumbed to the publishing bust of the late 00’s and ended its run with issue #375. There was a promise to continue as an online magazine, but that never happened and the www.starlog.com site has since gone silent.
Created By: Kerry O’Quinn, Norman Jacobs
First Published: August 1976
Final Issue: #375, April 2009
Legacy:
Before Twitter, Reddit, Wikipedia, and before the internet and the media explosion, people still read print magazines, and from the mid-70s into the mid-to-late 80s Starlog ruled as the source of entertainment news and information for science fiction and fantasy fans.
A Closer Look:
The newer generation of sci fi fans who may have picked up an issue of Starlog off the magazine from time to time when it was still on the stands cannot understand just how important this magazine was during its heyday. When it hit the newsstands back in mid-1976, there was nothing else quite like it for genre fans. In fact, there was a huge void of information in the science fiction and fantasy universe. Warren’s Famous Monsters of Filmland had mostly just retrospectives and focused more on horror and monster movies. The pulps like Analog and Fantasy and Science Fiction dedicated little if any print space to movies or television, and the entertainment magazines like TV Guide (or the local supplement in the newspaper) might have a few tidbits here or there, but these rarely satisfied a sci fi fan’s thirst for genre news. And–I know this is hard for the younger generation to grasp–there was no internet then. No Wikipedia to look up information on a movie or television show that you might have stumbled upon. No sites like Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, or TV Line breaking the latest entertainment news and no genre-focused blogs like io9.com, BleedingCool.com, or Den of Geek or social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit to bring fans the latest genre scoops. Nope, you had to sit and wait for the latest issue of Starlog to hit the stands (or arrive in the mail if you subscribed) and it initially only came out once every two months (by issue #20 it went to monthly).
I remember reading about Star Wars for the first time in Starlog (yes, I am that old). I remember the shocking announcement of Space: 1999’s cancellation on the cover of issue #6. I remember the lengthy and enlightening article taking us through Gerry Anderson’s career producing Supermarionation shows like Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. I remember discovering all about The Prisoner and the nightmarish Kafka-esque world that show created on Prime Time television. And the episode guides, oh the episode guides! That was like finding buried treasure back then in the pre-Internet, pre-Wikipedia days. Finally you knew all the episodes that had been produced for shows like Star Trek, Space: 1999, UFO, Lost in Space, and many more. Sci fi fans like myself would eagerly await each issue and then greedily devour it from cover to cover, going back to these issues again and again to revisit and rediscover all of the sacred knowledge they held. It was sadly lacking in reviews, something that many of us fans clamored for over the years, but it still provided a wealth of other information on the genre that we could not easily find anywhere else.
Starlog was a huge success with genre fans upon its release which led to other magazines (and a slew of fanzines) cropping up to give it some competition, but none could ever unseat it from its place as the leader in sci fi news for its first twenty-plus years of existence. By the nineties, though, as sci fi had become a staple on the big screen and had made serious inroads back on television, other entertainment magazines such as Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide began to give the genre more respect. And once the internet exploded with sci fi-oriented sites and blogs in the late nineties and especially in the ’00s, Starlog became a bit of a relic. But next time you turn to the internet to find out the scoop on an upcoming film or to read about a television series that you just discovered or to find an episode recap, think back to the dark ages (pre-internet) when those resources were not right at your fingertips and you had to wait for the latest issue of the magazine each month to find out what was going on in the worlds of science fiction and fantasy.
Should it Be Revived?
Magazines have pretty much become a thing of the past, and SFX has stepped in to fill the void caused by Starlog‘s disappearance (and they have reviews!), so it seems unlikely that the OG sci fi mag would return in print form. But there is still a need for an all-encompassing genre-focused website, and a revival of Starlog could take up that challenge. While there are plenty of sites out there that do cover sci fi and fantasy, few offer a television schedule (like CancelledSciFi.com has at this link) or a list of current and upcoming movies. A site that acts as a good, central guide for the sci fi genre while also covering news and updates as well as in-depth articles and retrospectives and reviews could be successful if done right. I don’t know if there are any plans for a revival of Starlog (the website asks for an email to get updates on its status), but I would certainly support a return of this genre icon.
Interesting Facts:
Starlog actually originated from a mid-70s idea by publishers Kerry O’Quinn and Norman Jacobs to produce a one-shot magazine covering Star Trek. However, Paramount Studios wanted a royalty since they owned Trek, and that would would make the magazine too expensive. O’Quinn and Jacobs found a way around this, though, when they discovered that a magazine covering Star Trek (along with other topics) would not have to pay this royalty. Thus, Starlog began and the first issue included an in-depth retrospective on classic Trek along with that invaluable episode guide.
Though Kerry O’Quinn and Norman Jacobs would eventually become legends among sci fi fans because of Starlog and the other genre magazines they created such as Fangoria, Cinemagic, and Comics Scene, they actually got their start producing a magazine that covered soap operas!
Where Can You Read It?
Unfortunately, Starlog has never been collected into an omnibus edition, so you have to search out the back issues to rediscover the magic of its early years. There is, however, a retrospective site that has the covers and summaries for past issues for those who want to reminisce about its glory days. Currently it has covered up through issue #170. The is also The Starlog Compendium that gives detailed descriptions of each issue and acts as a reader’s guide. That has covered up to issue#200
Further Reading:
Wikipedia
The Starlog Compendium: Volume I, Issues 1–200, 1976–1994
