I still miss Starlog.
It was the first mainstream magazine that jacked directly into the high geekery I felt at an early age. It was one thing to be able to go to a local drug store and buy comics and trading cards, but the idea that I could also get a MAGAZINE that covers the TV shows and movies I loved? Crazy. Magazines were about important stuff, like news, or porn. Starlog changed that for me.
One of the most awesome parts of living in THE FUTURE means that I can now revisit the classic issues of Starlog I enjoyed as a young lad without having to actually OWN the physical copies. Archive.org has… well, almost every issue. I was looking through issue 55 when this struck my fancy.
STARLOG TRADING POST.
WOW. So much wonderfully dated awesomeness to behold. A Rocky 2 posterbook! A plastic skull! A Starlog t-shirt! And, let us not overlook the Holy Grail amongst all the other High Geekery: The Official Starlog Communications Handbook! With THE COMPLETE ADDRESS OF ALL MOVIE STUDIOS AND PRODUCTION COMPANIES. Holy crap, back in 1982 this was POWER. To be able to write the studio and say “Bring back Logan’s Run!” or “We need to get another season of Space: 1999!” Man, that was something. And only a buck fifty!
While that was exciting enough, the next page of the Trading Post… it contains multitudes.
The Official Superman Book! Star Trek greeting cards! Battlestar Galactica iron-ons! The Illustrated Harlan Ellison! Space:1999 blueprints! 3-D photography! If you need to have early 1980s fandom summed up in a single image, it is this page from Starlog. You have literary SF pushing (slightly) through, you have comics and space art making a stand, and you have a nearly-ead franchise (Space:1999) lingering on in fan’s hearts. To be honest, I’m surprised to not see Pern here as well. Or a filk songbook.
The thing is, I would still LOVE to have all of these items today – and I actually have a couple. The Superman Book is in my possession, and I have digital copies of the Space: 1999 notebook and one of Nimoy’s albums (because, as a Star Trek fan, it is legally required to own). If I didn’t already have a man-cave sized abundance of geek items already, I would go to eBay and search for the rest of these things right now.
…
Be right back.