1987
From Fan History Wiki
1987 was another year of more moving into the realms of Internet based fan fiction. Other communities have grown larger. Slash became bigger, bigger and even more bigger; it was dominating a number fannish frontiers. Various television shows are on which will eventually have sizable fan fiction communities behind them.
By 1987 several universities have active communities using campus networks for the posting and distribution of fan fiction, and the related discussion on them. These universities included the University of Oregon, University of Delaware and Bryn Mawr (heavenscalyx). Bryn Mawr College’s fan fiction community was using their campus’s VAX network as a place to publish and share fan fiction with the university community. This method of sharing fan fiction through VAX would continue until around 1993. The fan fiction communities that were represented included Doctor Who, Blake’s 7, Star Trek and Transformers.
Drabbles are stories that are exactly one hundred words long. 1987 marked the start of this particular fan fiction tradition. According to TheForce.Net's Fan Fiction Archive: Lexicon, this tradition was based on a Monty Python skit. It started in the Doctor Who fan fiction community before spreading to the Star Trek, Star Wars and other fan fiction communities.
Two communities have enough fanzines out there that they warranted their own categories for the FanQ awards. These communities were The Professionals and Simon & Simon. Both of these communities had been around for a while. In the case of The Professionals, there were fanzines dating back to 1980.
Slash did not just appear to be getting larger; it could be numerically be proven to be so. Based on analysis of Datazine by Verba, slash was beginning to occupy a large part of the Star Trek community. Datazine 48 listed 47 non-Kirk/Spock zines compared to 30 Kirk/Spock zines. Verba did another analysis Universal Translator. She found 144 non-Kirk/Spock fanzines compared to 58 Kirk/Spock fanzines.
In the realms of canon universes which would spawn fan fiction communities, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Beauty and the Beast were in their first season this year. The Bold and the Beautiful starts in its first season. Coronation Street, Doctor Who, All My Children, Dallas, Magnum P.I., Simon & Simon, Miami Vice, The Bill, MacGyver all continue their runs on television. Remington Steele, The Scarecrow and Mrs. King and The A-Team were all in their final seasons.
'See also:
- Canon released in 1987
- Fan fiction awards given in 1987
- Fanzines published in 1987
- Technology innovations in 1987
