mae@aplvax.UUCP (Mary Anne Espenshade) (08/14/85)
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Fanzines
(But Were Afraid to Ask)
After reading and contributing to net.startrek for about 3 years,
I've come to the conclusion that many of you are avid fans that watch
the show regularly, read the novels, and go to the movies but that you
have not been active in organized fandom or had much personal interaction
with other fans. If you've been to a convention at all, it has been a
professionally organized one, like Creation, where they pay big money
for name guests and have a dealers room oriented to profit-making sales.
You've heard of fan written fiction, and fanzines, at least in the book
"Star Trek Lives", but you don't really know what all the fuss is about,
so I'll try to answer some questions that have been posted here recently.
Fanzines of one type or another have existed in SF fandom since
way before Star Trek came along. Trek zines started out as mimeographed
collections of stories, moved on through typing and photocopying, till
now most are offset print or typeset on the editor's home computer. They
include poetry and artwork as well as stories and articles. Professional
Trek writers like Ann Crispin started out writing for zines. At a fan
run convention, set up by othr fans in the interest of having fun - not
making money - there will be fan dealers selling zines. There are even
conventions totally dedicated to zines - Media West Con in the midwest U.S.
and More Eastly in New York. You can also order them through the mail,
but then you are left at the mercy of the Post Awful. The best way to
find out about available and proposed zines if you don't go to cons is a
publication called Universal Translator. It is a quarterly newsletter
entirely for zine and convention ads and reviews. A single issue runs
40+ pages and costs $2.75 (U.S. and Canada, $3.75 overseas). The current
issue is #27, though #28 should be out soon. The ordering address is:
Universal Translator
Susan J. Bridges / Kookaburra Press
200 West 79th Street, 14H
New York, N.Y. 10024
To help you understand the jargon terms in the ads, here are some definitions.
First some types of zines:
Media zine - any collection of fan written fiction set in a
universe created for a tv show or movie. Nearly everything in U.T. is a
media zine, the latest issue listed 44 specific topics plus general media
and general SF.
genzine - a zine that includes material from multiple universes,
as opposed to a purely Star Trek zine.
letterzine - consists entirely of letters of comment (LOCs) on
any topic about one show - like net.startrek but collected by one person,
printed and mailed out to subscribers.
And some types of stories:
Most are adventure stories written in the same style as an episode of
the show, but there are special types identified by specific terms.
Mary Sue stores - these can be good but the term is usually
deragatory. The author writes her alter ego as a central character
in the story and saves the universe/rescues the central characters/wins
the undieing love of the main character of her choice or at least
gets to bed with him. Most established Trek zines have grown out of
this phase.
get stories (and death stories) - do something that rarely
happens on American tv - kill off a regular (or at least torture them).
Personally, I avoid these.
hurt/comfort - like a "get" story but predominately about
another character comforting the "gotten" character.
lay stories (this should be obvious!) - straight sex, can
be PG to XXX rated, zines that include explicit stories are sold only
to those over 18, that's what "age statement required" means in an
ad.
/ (slash) stories - based on the premise of a homosexual
relationship. K/S (Kirk/Spock) started it all, but every universe
that involves male partnership has some. It's very popular lately.
A panel of zine editors at August Party (a local Trek con with a
whole fanzine dealers' room separate from the pro dealers' room)
earlier this month estimated that about half the Trek fan fiction
right now is K/S - Professionals fandom has 97% slash stories. There
are many zines that are entirely K/S - the ad will always let you
know, they don't want to offend unsuspecting purchasers. These zines
are always "adults only". I have read some slash stories but they do
nothing for me, if I'm in the mood to read explicit sex stories I want
to be able to identify with one of the participants!
alternate universe stories - the Mirror,Mirror universe is
an example from aired Trek, fans have written stories set there
and invented many of their own.
cross universe stories - a well known example is The Doctor
and the Enterprise, by Jean Airey, any story that combines characters
and settings from more than one universe. These are my personal favorite.
Hope this helps. I'm open for questions either by e-mail or posted to
net.startrek. I'm not an editor or even writer myself (I wish I had
the time) but I have a very large collection of Trek, Star Wars, Doctor
Who and Blake's 7 zines, as well as genzines.
Mary Anne Espenshade
...!{allegra, seismo}!umcp-cs!aplvax!mae