Wednesday, June 9, 2010

The Starlog Project: Starlog #114, January 1987: Bigtime Trek

They had a drinking game in the Starlog offices back in the mid-1980s. Every time anyone proposed publishing an article about any aspect whatsoever about Star Trek, they all took a swig of whatever was closest. Unfortunately, they got a little hooked on the booze, and the result is an avalanche of Trek coverage.

Okay, clearly I made that up. (But if it were true, it would explain the recent Howard the Duck cover.) Meanwhile, feel free to drink – responsibly! – every time you see another Trek article listed in these writeups.

Starlog #114
76 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $2.95

Animation legend Chuck Jones and science legend Arthur C. Clarke chime in this issue with letters to the editor. Any issue that features those can't be half-bad.

The rundown: Spock's image takes the lead position this month, featured on the cover (and the whole man is featured in an interview inside). Kerry O'Quinn's From the Bridge column cites the Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations ethos of Star Trek (drink!) to support his call for a new understanding of tolerance and enjoyment of people's differences (though, to be fair, let's remember that Trek is one of the most conservative shows around when it comes to featuring gay characters); in the Communications pages, Chuck Jones thanks the magazine for a recent article about him in #108, Arthur C. Clarke claims some credit for predicting live media coverage of the moon landing, tons of readers respond to Ben Bova's recent guest column (in #106) on stellar war and peace, a reader actually follows up on his complaint that Starlog doesn't cover Rambo (quit while you're behind, sir), and more; Medialog features David McDonnell's genre news roundup (printed on a streaky black-and-white page that is nearly unreadable, though I can just barely make out that plans are afoot for a new version of the My Favorite Martian TV series), plus there's news about a new Star Trek series (you know what to do) called Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Eric Niderost visits the San Francisco set of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; Brian Lowry talks to Tom Patchett, writer/producer of TV's weird ALF series; the Fan Network section includes photos from a dress-up screening of The Fly, a note about a symposium being led by Industrial Light and Magic wizards, a Looney Tunes/Star Trek cartoon, and more; Brian Lowry interviews actor Robert Hays, star of the new spinoff TV series, Starman; Mike Clark talks with actor Guy Williams about his time in Lost in Space and Zorro; Daniel Dickholtz pens the Comcis Scene pages, looking at Watchmen; David Hutchison's Videolog covers the latest video releases, such as Legend; John Sayers profiles animator Don Bluth (American Tail); Lee Goldberg talks with director Peter Hunt (Hyper Sapien); Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier interview Leonard Nimoy about directing and acting in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (bottoms up!); Chris Henderson's Booklog covers the latest print releases, such as Vonda N. McIntyre's Enterprise: The First Adventure; Edward Gross interviews Marc Daniels, director of TV episodes such as "Mirror, Mirror" from the original Star Trek; William Rabkin talks with Michael Ritchie about directing The Golden Child; Roger Anker interviews writer William F. Nolan about his mentor Ray Bradbury, Logan's Run, and more; Brian Lowry chats with actor Paul Reiser about his role in Aliens; Dan Scapperotti, veteran of competitor Cinefantastique, joins the Starlog contributors' cadre with "Memories of Fu Manchu"; Jean Airey and Laurie Haldeman interview actor Gareth Thomas about Blake's 7; and David McDonnell's Liner Notes gets all Christmasy on us.
"One thing we've tried to express with Watchmen is the investigation of the superhero. We've tried to work out how a real superhero would live and function in a realistic world, what he would be like psychologically, what sort of things would really motivate him. We've also tried to examine how the presence of a superhero would alter that world in terms of technology, politics, what people think and so on."
–Alan Moore, writer, interviewed by Daniel Dickholtz: Comics Scene: "Man & Overman"
To view previous Starlog issue descriptions, click on "Starlog Internet Archive Project" in the keywords below or visit the Starlog Project's permanent home.

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