Star Wars fanzine kerfluffle

From Fan History Wiki

1981 will most likely be remembered as the year of the Star Wars fanzine kerfluffle. In May of 1981, according to ksl ([1]) "L. Deneroff and C. Levine published a story titled "Slow Boat to Bespin" in Guardian #3, their mixed media fanzine." There were two versions of this story. One was written by A.E. Zeek. The other was written by B. Wenk. The story that was targeted was Zeek’s story which would probably be considered R Rated using today’s definitions. Most likely, as a result of Zeek’s story, Lucasfilms Ltd. sent out several Cease and Desist letters to Star Wars fanzines. The letters were sent by Maureen Garrett. ksl quoted part of the letters sent out in August as saying "Lucasfilm Ltd. does own all rights to the Star Wars characters and we are going to insist upon no pornography. This may mean no fanzines if that measure is what is necessary to stop the few from darkening the reputation our company is so proud of." The community waited for guidelines to be created, guidelines Garrett promised were forthcoming in the Cease and Desist letters. The guidelines that came out in October were not really guidelines but a statement that there was to be nothing vulgar, pornographic, excessively violent or gory. People complained for a while but eventually the community moved on and people started writing and circulating more adult material. This event did have the net effect of making Star Wars fan fiction community relatively slash free until the release of Episode 1.