1970
From Fan History Wiki
1970 and the community as we know it was still building. By this time, the fan fiction community seemed to have a gender composition that would stay with the community well into the present time. According to Curtin, the percent of involvement of women, based on an analysis of names of fanzine contributors in the period between 1967 and 1970, was around 83%. Curtin compared this to other parts of the science fiction community where the female participation rate was estimated at 17%.
Slash has begun to show up on the scene, in underground, distributed by hand stories. While these stories were not published in the Star Trek community for another four years, Henry Jenkins notes that the Star Trek fan fiction community initially greeted this material with stiff resistance. It would take many years before this material was viewed as broadly acceptable in the Star Trek community, with some fen going out of their way in an attempt to marginalize this material by sending copies to various actors whose characters were being portrayed as gay. In one case, a fan sent a piece of slash to William Shatner hoping the actor would crack down on the material. According to several sources, the author consulted his lawyer who told him to let it go as it would do more harm than good to go after it.
One of the earliest known pieces of ActorFic was written in 1970. In June, Spockanalia 5 featured a sequel to "Visit to a Weird Planet," titled "Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited," by Ruth Berman. In this piece of Star Trek ActorFic, Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley end up on the Enterprise. ( Langley: http://www.livejournal.com/community/fanthropology/65512.html?replyto=1456616])
The modern comic book fan fiction community would begin to take shape in the 1970s with the creation the Amazing World of DC Comics. This publisher started as a fan run press, created after a series of incidents would lead to a decline in the total number comics being published. These incidents include inferior quality comics, a dropping of important comic strips from newspapers and less space being dedicated to comics in newspapers.
See also:
- Fan fiction archives founded in 1970
- Mailing lists founded in 1970
- Fanzines published in 1970
- Technology innovations in 1970
- Terminology originating in 1970
