Starlog Issue #1

(Click on images to enlarge.)

Published in August of 1976, this magazine was like finding an oasis of Trek in the media desert. I would say it was probably the highlight of that year as far as finding Star Trek material, devoted as it was to the show with COLOR photos (Eeeeee!) in the middle, an episode guide, interviews and more. It was like a Trek convention in my own little room. I was 18 years old at the time, going on 14.

If my discovery of the Gold Key comics had been my first kiss in trekkie-dom, and the various Blish adaptations like infrequent dates, then this magazine was like getting to third base. (Obviously, I didn't date real girls very much. There were no PCs at the time so nerds were not as popular as they are today; back then there was very little use for them.)

Walking home to my Fort Lauderdale house with that issue in my hands, I was almost trembling with excitement and happiness. After the usual sneaking-it-past-the-parents routine, I sequestered myself in my room, donned the grapefruit- sized earphones of the time, and listened to my disco music while I absorbed the magazine. I still have the issue, along with many other issues, and it still invokes the way I felt back then whenever I come across it as I go through my collection cases.

Does that seem strange to you, as you read this? Or can you relate to it? I'd love to start getting a little feedback in the comments section to let me know if any of these posts are connecting and triggering memories of your own. My counter tells me people are coming, but hardly anyone comments, and I'm feeling a bit like I did in 1971 when I thought I was the only Trek fan in the world.

Below is an ad that came in my AMT Enterprise model kit in 1975. I saved nearly everything. I never ordered them, of course; my walking into the living room wearing a T-shirt with a Trek iron-on would have been like walking into a Klan meeting wearing a MLK button.

And below is a pen and ink of the lovely but dangerous Mirror Uhura that I did back around 1978. I based the body on a pose in an art book I had. I was experimenting with using shading film to darken certain areas at the time, but I wish I hadn't, as over the years it yellowed, and shrunk awy from the edges. Now artists can shade areas with the click of a mouse.