Starlog magazine stops printing

RaiderMitch

TR.N Staff Member
The fanzine fades away

Starlog magazine is ceasing publication...way before the internet... this was fanboy heaven and now it's gone the way of the do-do... And after 33 years and 374 issues, Starlog is officially calling it quits, continuing for the time being as an online-only publication.

Christoper Reeve, William Shatner, John Carpenter, George Lucas and of course Harrison Ford they were featured, as were The Goonies, Star Trek and anything to do with sci-fi or fantasy in film, books and TV...it was to be found in the pages of Starlog magazine.

If you look in the back issues you can find lettesr from me including a review of Ladyhawke with Rutger Hauer, Matthew Broderick and Michele Pfiefer and the first ever PG-13 movie - Dreamscape with Dennis Quaid, Kate Capshaw and Eddie Albert as the President. Was 1984 really twenty five years ago?

Most of all, Starlog gave the fan world the first ever word and photos on Star Wars starring Alec Guiness and newcomers Mark Hamill and Harrison Ward (I kid you not on that last one it was printed in issue #6), and then the word of a new film by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg called Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is very fitting that the last issue I picked last year sported a cover story on Indy's return in the "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull".

As they say"all good things...must come to an end" or rather; "all those moments will be lost.. like tears in the rain".

So long, Starlog. Hailing frequencies are now closed.

Source: Entertainment Weekly http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/04/starlog-magazin.html



Posted by Mitchell Hallock
 

DocWhiskey

Well-known member
That's a real shame. It was a legendary magazine especially for us. I just bought a few original Raiders covers for Christmas and found a special ToD issue for $1 at my bookstore a few weeks back.

I will miss it greatly.
 

tambourineman

New member
Ah Starlog... takes me back to the good old days when it was fun being a fan and enthusiast, before the internet came along and everyone thought being a fan was being as negative and picky as possible.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, Dreamscape, filmed right next to where I grew up. Bummer about the cancellation, but inevitable. Maybe they'll be kind enough to pdf their entire run.
 

RaiderMitch

TR.N Staff Member
Moedred said:
Yeah, Dreamscape, filmed right next to where I grew up. Bummer about the cancellation, but inevitable. Maybe they'll be kind enough to pdf their entire run.

My kids are watching a new Disney show called Aaron Stone and the school the characters attend looks exactly like the shot you have there from Raiders... the camera even panned down from the steeple top to the doors where the "students" skateboarded down the railing on the right of the doors... the angle and architechture was too close to be an accident.. I am sure its the same school...
 

Stoo

Well-known member
tambourineman said:
Ah Starlog... takes me back to the good old days when it was fun being a fan and enthusiast, before the internet came along and everyone thought being a fan was being as negative and picky as possible.
Hear! Hear! My 1st issue was #37 (with the Millenium Falcon & Star Destroyer on the cover) back in 1980 and I ended up buying it religiously for the next 4 years. What a great mag. I still have every issue in a box. Thanks for the good times, Starlog!:hat:
 

Indy's Fist

New member
Another piece of my youth is taken away. It seems everyday another part of "what was" is just that, a relec of the past. It comes at the expence of our ever progressive world and it makes it a sadder place to live.
 

DocWhiskey

Well-known member
Indy's Fist said:
Another piece of my youth is taken away. It seems everyday another part of "what was" is just that, a relec of the past. It comes at the expence of our ever progressive world and it makes it a sadder place to live.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wgECKj9LSH4&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wgECKj9LSH4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
 
STARBLOG: Liner Notes: Indiana Jones and the Licensed Misadventure

?If adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones.? That?s a sentiment I can readily agree with?Indy is one of my favorite ?fictional? characters (up there with Doc Savage, The Shadow, Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, John Carter of Mars, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Batman, James Bond and too many others to list). But, you know, although STARLOG gave covers to all four Indy films (as well as TV?s THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES), we never ventured into Indy action for a licensed magazine. I know only part of the reasons why.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) is one of my favorite films?and, I think, one of the five best adventure movies ever made (the others in chronological order: THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, Disney?s 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, WHERE EAGLES DARE). I was working for another magazine (Jim Steranko?s MEDIASCENE PREVUE) upon RAIDERS? release. There?s no one here to ask more senior than me, but I can speculate. STARLOG GROUP had only done a handful of licensed publications at that point (MOONRAKER in 1979, ANNIE in 1980) and maybe we just DIDN?T approach (or even THINK to approach) Lucasfilm about a deal. And Lucasfilm didn?t offer?since I don?t recall a licensed RAIDERS magazine from anyone else either (comics from Marvel, paperback novelization from Del Rey).

INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984) wasn?t, I believe, a prospect for us. We were already doing official STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK and CONAN THE DESTROYER magazines that summer (both edited by me). And Lucasfilm had authorized another publisher for DOOM. They produced a nice one-shot and a couple other projects?and then left the licensing biz.

I should explain here that studios license movies (and TV shows) for one-shot magazines, comics and paperbacks for three reasons: #1) To promote the property and raise awareness among its potential audience (in which case the publisher lucks out, usually paying a LOW licensing fee) or #2) To make money (where the publisher MUST PAY BIG to get the license) or #3) Both! (a miracle of rare device). Publishers, by the way, are always in it for #2. Me? Well. In my career, I only did two for the money (STREET FIGHTER, MORTAL KOMBAT), all the rest were because I was a fan of the subject matter. Reason #1) might have applied to RAIDERS, but by DOOM, it was definitely #2.

But that DIDN?T matter because the STARLOG GROUP was going to do INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989)! We had produced three licensed publications, edited by me, on WILLOW where Lucasfilm?s motivation was Reason #1, and they agreed to STARLOG publisher Norman Jacobs? usual licensing scenario (a decent advance payment up front but most of the fee coming as a higher percentage of final sales to be paid later). Everyone was pleased with the WILLOW magazines (state of the art for 1998), though I don?t think they (or the movie or ANY WILLOW product) sold all that well. So what! With WILLOW just premiering, we had an oral agreement to embark on THE LAST CRUSADE.

Well, I was incredibly excited and immediately started planning the publication. I wanted to make LAST CRUSADE look like a pulp magazine from the 1930s, maybe ?age? the paper (coloring it beige or off-white), write all the story titles and captions in blood-curdling, pulp magazine purple prose, give it a pulpish painted cover (probably the inevitable Drew Struzan movie poster), etc., etc. Publisher Jacobs was excited; he told Lucasfilm he would get ONE MILLION copies of the magazine into the marketplace. He started assembling a grand scenario (sales literature, etc., etc.) that summer and began talking Indy up to the many retailers and distributors of the time (a number sadly diminished today, 20 years later), hoping to spur that million-copy total print order. You see, each retail outlet (newsstand, bookstore, convenience store, drugstore) could only stock a few copies (two, five or 10), so it would take a MASSIVE number of places to reach that one million tally. Yes, we made GRAND plans! And then, Lucasfilm called to say they were going with another publisher. We were dumbfounded.

But what was to be done? The other publisher, new to the licensed magazine biz and based in Europe, was offering thousands and thousands of dollars more than our bid and all UP FRONT. We couldn?t possibly match that, I was told. We had no signed contract. So, they got LAST CRUSADE. And we sighed.

Months later, in I think January 1989, Lucasfilm called again. The other publisher (and I never knew their name or if they?re still around) hadn?t worked out. Would STARLOG like to do the LAST CRUSADE magazine after all?

You betchum, Red Rider, I vowed, but publisher Jacobs crunched the numbers. A print order would be due about April 15 or so for pre-Memorial Day publication. There was NO WAY, he thought, to rally the retailers and distributors of America to absorb a million copies now that more than six months of his sales time had evaporated. We COULDN?T do it! So we DIDN?T! And as far as I can recall, there wasn?t a LAST CRUSADE magazine from anyone else.

As for THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES in the 1990s, I think we talked about that briefly, but it looked like an unlikely prospect, so it never went forward (and I don?t remember another publisher doing an OFFICIAL YOUNG INDY magazine either). By 2008, STARLOG had been out of the fickle licensed magazine biz for YEARS and our old friends (really!) at Titan Books acquired Indy?s rights and did a terrific job with a multiple-issue run of the OFFICIAL INDIANA JONES & THE CRYSTAL SKULL magazine. Anyhow, I?m sad to say that?s how we missed out on the adventure?and the licensed misadventure.

David McDonnell is the longtime Editor of STARLOG. His career began with letters in Marvel Comics, ?humorous? stories in fanzines and the Media Report news column for THE COMICS BUYERS? GUIDE (1975-80). He joined Jim Steranko?s MEDIASCENE PREVUE in May 1980 and moved to STARLOG in October 1982. He served as Editor of COMICS SCENE, FANGORIA, SCI-FI TV, FANTASY WORLDS and ACTION HEROES. He was also Editor of licensed, ongoing magazines devoted to STAR TREK TV series (NEXT GENERATION, DS9, VOYAGER) and one-shots showcasing 30-odd movies (WILLOW, STREET FIGHTER, MORTAL KOMBAT, etc.).
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
Crazy Pre-Internet Starlog Magazine Rumors:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/23/n_3322393.html
September 1981: A reader can't wait for more Indiana Jones adventures after seeing "Raiders of the Lost Ark." George Lucas explains that both sequels are to be prequels. (Only "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" was a prequel.)
- I truly hope that it is just the first of many Indiana Jones adventures!
- George Lucas reports that it's actually the third of Indy's adventures.
 
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