Origins In the mid-1970s, Kerry O'Quinn and his high school friend David Houston talked about creating a magazine that would cover science fiction films and television programs. (O'Quinn and Norman Jacobs had gotten their start in creating and publishing a soap opera magazine.) O'Quinn came up with the idea of publishing a one-time-only magazine on the
Star Trek phenomenon. Houston's editorial assistant, Kirsten Russell, suggested that they include an episode guide to all three seasons of the show, interviews with the cast, and previously unpublished photographs. During this brainstorming session, many questions were raised, most notably legal issues. Houston contacted
Star Trek creator
Gene Roddenberry with the intention of interviewing him for the magazine. Once they got his approval, O'Quinn and Jacobs proceeded to put together the magazine, but
Paramount Studios, which owned
Star Trek, wanted a minimum royalty that was greater than the startup's projected net receipts, and the project was shelved. O'Quinn realized they could create a magazine that featured
Star Trek content, but without it being the sole focus, thereby circumventing the royalties issue. He also realized this could be the general science fiction magazine he and Houston had talked about. Many titles for the new magazine were suggested, including
Fantastic Films and
Starflight, before
Starlog was chosen. (
Fantastic Films was later used as the title of a competing science fiction magazine published by Blake Publishing.)
Starlog debuts The first issue of
Starlog, scheduled as a quarterly, was dated August 1976. While the cover featured
Captain Kirk,
Spock, and the
Enterprise, and the issue contained a "Special Collector's Section" on
Star Trek, other science fiction topics were also discussed, such as
The Bionic Woman and
Space: 1999. The issue sold out, and this encouraged O'Quinn and Jacobs to publish a magazine every six weeks instead of quarterly. O'Quinn was the magazine's editor.
Milestones One of the magazine's milestones was its 100th issue, published in November 1985. It featured the 100 most important people in science fiction as determined by the editors. This included exclusive interviews with
John Carpenter,
Peter Cushing,
George Lucas,
Harlan Ellison,
Leonard Nimoy, and
Gene Roddenberry. In 1985 and 1986,
Starlog teamed with
Creation Entertainment to produce a series of conventions called the Starlog SF, Horror & Fantasy Festival. The first show was held March 30–31, 1985, at the
Boston Sheraton in Boston. Others were held June 15–16, 1985, at the Center Hotel, Philadelphia, and May 10–11, 1986, at the
Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. The magazine's 200th issue repeated the format of the 100th issue, but this time interviewed such notable artists as
Arthur C. Clarke,
Tim Burton,
William Gibson,
Gale Anne Hurd, and
Terry Gilliam. The last issue of Starlog, issue 374, published in April 2009 features more modern science fiction media including the television show
Fringe, the American movie
Push, and the animated stop-motion film
Coraline.
Sale to Creative Group, Inc After the entire magazine industry took a serious tumble in 2001, Starlog Group was eventually purchased by Creative Group, Inc., which continued to publish
Starlog and
Fangoria, and expanded its franchises into the Internet,
satellite radio, TV, and video.
Starlog published its 30th-anniversary issue in 2006.
Warehouse fire On December 5, 2007, a warehouse operated by Kable News, in
Oregon, Illinois, which contained all back issues of
Starlog and
Fangoria magazines, was destroyed by fire. As back issues of
Starlog are not reprinted, the only remaining back issues are now housed in private collections or those available on the secondary market.
Bankruptcy Starlog publisher Creative Media, including eight affiliates, filed for bankruptcy in March 2008 in the
United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, intending to reorganize. By April 2008, it was confirmed that Creative Media was unable to reorganize, and announced that its operations would be sold. and, in June 2008, sold its assets to a group led by private equity firm Scorpion Capital Partners LP.
Starlog and
Fangoria and all related assets were purchased by The Brooklyn Company, Inc. in July 2008. In March 2009,
Starlog became a sister site to
Fangoria magazine's official site, with a new web address tied to
Fangoria. Simultaneously, production was halted on issue #375, scheduled for May 2009. New content began to appear on the
Starlog website on April 7, 2009, after the site briefly returned to its original Starlog.com domain. The folding of the print edition was officially announced on April 8, 2009, with the unpublished issue promised in the near future as a web-only publication. but no such publication ever appeared. By the end of 2009, readers could only access back copies through the
Internet Archive; while this worked until at least 2016, the Internet Archive removed the data from its service by no later than 2022, replacing previous links with the statement "This item is no longer available." In April 2014,
Fangoria announced that
Starlog would return in the summer of 2014, first as a relaunched website and later in the year as a digital magazine; once again, no such relaunch ever occurred. == References ==