1979
From Fan History Wiki
1979, just another year where more and more communities began to be represented in the larger fan fiction culture. More people are coming in. More things are happening. The reach is spreading. The Star Trek fan fiction community continues on, still maintaining their influence in forming the discussions that other media based communities would deal with. Crossovers also make their way on the scene.
In the world of canon universes, several things were going on. Battlestar Galactica was ending its first and only season. Meanwhile, Starsky and Hutch continued its first run on television. The first Star Trek movie came out in theaters on December 9.
Other fan fiction communities were becoming more open, having more zines published and more clubs founded. "Shadowgram" was founded, and is one of the earliest Dark Shadows fanzines. In Gerry Anderson’s UFO fan fiction community, United States East Coast Control was founded. They would publish a fanzine and four newsletters a year. These would frequently contain fan fiction. The Space: 1999 community continued its zine tradition with the publication of issues of Alpha Log, Nightmare, and A Space: 1999 Trilogy this year. The fanzine Odyssey contained a M*A*S*H story. Star Wars stories, authors and artists were well represented at this years FanQ awards.
The age of writing crossovers begins with the appearance of some of the earliest multifandom television based crossovers. Two early examples cited by Verba include The Network, the British Man from U.N.C.L.E. fanzine, publishing one of the first crossovers in fan fiction with a Star Trek/Man from U.N.C.L.E. crossover. This was followed up during the same year with another Star Trek/Man from U.N.C.L.E. as the probable second crossover.
The Star Trek community continued their various dialogues in their community. Some of the issues the community addressed this year was how spouses of Star Trek fannish women dealt with their interest in Star Trek. The community also spent time complaining about the poor quality of the professionally written Star Trek novels. Fans worried about what the release of the movie would do to their community. Another concern that received attention this year was the high cost of producing fanzines.
See also:
- Canon released in 1979
- Fan fiction awards given in 1979
- Fanclubs founded in 1979
- Fanzines published in 1979
- Technology innovations in 1979
