Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was pretty good. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about the magazines of Star Trek as there have been a few of them over the years and I'm planning on doing the same for Star Wars eventually too. Also I'll be splitting this into two parts because there are so many magazines that focus on the Star Trek franchise as a whole that this part will be pretty long as it is, so stay tuned for part 2. One other thing I would like take note of is that I couldn't find an image of the cover for Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine #1, so I'll be using issue #26's cover instead. So let's get into it.
While fans had been making their own magazines about the franchise since the original series had been airing in the 1960s, it wouldn't be until Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out in 1979 that the first official Star Trek magazine would begin publication. Created by Dan Madsen as the newsletter for the Offical Star Trek Fan Club, Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine started out as an unofficial publication for Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, and then became the unofficial publication for Star Trek II; The Wrath of Khan in 1982 as you can see from the cover of issue #26. Naturally, Paramount Pictures found out about the fan club and the magazine, and licensed both the club and the magazine.
The magazine became full-sized/full coloured with issue #58 in 1987, which coincided with the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation, with many of the covers featuring TNG characters, rather than TOS characters who were still appearing in movies throughout the '80s and early '90s. By the early '90s the magazine would contain reviews of the latest Star Trek novel to be released, as they also came out monthly.
My first issue of Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine was issue #87 from 1992. I actually had two copies. One I think my dad picked up for me from somewhere, and the second copy was given to me by the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation when I visited the set in January of 1993, along with issue #88. These two issues are interesting because they were the first to introduce Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which was set to debut in January, 1993. Issue #88 contained the full cast list for the new series. So that's how I found out about Sisko, Dax, Bashir, Kira and the rest. Both issues also contained an interview with Sir Patrick Stewart. Back then interviews would often be split up into two parts, split between two issues simply because of the magazine's size. There were fewer pages so there were fewer articles in the magazine. The rest of the issues would be taken up by a merchandise catalogue. I actually still have this issue and issue #88 in my collection and it's actually kind of fun to go back and see what was new with the Star Trek Universe back in 1992.
1994 was a big year for both Star Trek and Star Wars and the magazines reflected that. 1994 was the year that George Lucas announced that he would be producing a trilogy of Star Wars prequel movies, set before the Original Trilogy. On the Star Trek side of things, Star Trek: The Next Generation was ending after seven seasons, the cast would be transferring over to the big screen with the seventh Star Trek movie, Star Trek Generations, and a fourth live action Star Trek series, called Star Trek: Voyager, was about to debut in January 1995. Issue #99 reflected that change, as it was a special movie issue for Generations, with some DS9 sprinkled in among the movie stuff. Generations was a big deal because not only was it the big screen debut for the crew of the Enterprise-D, which they would promptly blow up at the end of the movie, but it would also be the first meeting between the captains of each generation, as Captain Kirk and Captain Picard would team up.
A month later issue #100 came out with the magazine sporting a new title, Star Trek: Communicator. This issue was a special issue focused on the captains of the franchise, with interviews with William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, and Avery Brooks, and a debut interview with Kate Mulgrew, who was about to debut as Captain Kathryn Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager, which was set to debut on UPN that month. I don't remember which one, but I remember this issue of Star Trek: Communicator being advertised in an issue of the Star Trek: The Next Generation comic book series that DC Comics was publishing at the time.
My first issue of the revamped magazine was #130, which had a big focus on the sixth season of Star Trek: Voyager, which had just ended, and the seventh season, which was about to start airing. It also had an article on the DVD for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was about to come out, and an interview with Armin Shimerman, who played Quark on DS9. When Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine became Star Trek: Communicator, the length of the magazine got longer, and the merchandise section got smaller and became known as Quark's Bazaar, similar to how the one in Star Wars Insider, which I'll be covering at another time, became the Jawa Trader. Despite being produced by the same company, Star Trek: Communicator wasn't as widely available as Star Wars Insider. At least not around where I live, so I didn't get it as often as I got Star Wars Insider, but it was still fun to read.
2005 was a difficult year for Star Trek. Enterprise was cancelled, and it didn't appear that an 11th movie was on the horizon so the future of the entire franchise was in question. Voyager also celebrated it's tenth anniversary that year. Because no new Star Trek was happening, Star Trek: Communicator ended with issue #155. I actually got this issue at a local hobby store that my dad still goes to today, and I enjoyed reading about Voyager's tenth anniversary. But, with the franchise seemingly dead, there was no need to continue to publish the magazine.
In 1999, a secondary magazine publication, Star Trek: The Magazine began coming out. This magazine had more of a focus on the in universe as many of the articles, including full technical briefings on ships, technology, species, and characters, written from an in universe perspective. There were some behind the scenes articles as well, just not nearly as many as Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine and Star Trek: Communicator, which was being published concurrently with this magazine, had.
I only have three issues of this magazine, but the first one I got had Commander Chakotay on the front cover as there was an interview with Robert Beltran, who played Chakotay, at the beginning of the issue. The four technical briefings in the issue were on the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-C, the Starfleet uniforms of the 24th Century (TNG seasons 1 and 2 basically), 24th Century Romulans, and the various propulsion systems that starships used throughout the franchise. Which was cool.
The magazine ceased publication in 2003 for reasons I can't seem to find out. Unlike with Star Trek: Communicator, this magazine ended a full two years before Enterprise was cancelled, seemingly killing off the franchise in the process. Even Memory Alpha doesn't say on it's page on this magazine why it was cancelled. It just was.
Star Trek Magazine originally began publication in the United Kingdom in 1995, around the time that Star Trek: Voyager was debuting. It was essentially the U.K. counterpart to Star Trek: Communicator. The first issue covered the TNG/DS9 crossover comic book series published by DC Comics and Malibu Comics. Which is fascinating to me because I've never heard anyone talk about that comic book crossover before and I don't know if Star Trek: Communicator covered it in their March 1995 issue or not. So that's cool.
In 2006, Titan Books, which had taken over publication of Star Wars Insider and Doctor Who Magazine in North America (they were already publishing them in the U.K.), began publishing an American version of Star Trek Magazine with issue #128. Unlike the U.K. edition, the American edition had it's own numbering, as issue 128 became issue #1 over here. Not only was it published for the franchise's 40th Anniversary, but Paramount announced that a new movie, most likely starring Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew of the original Enterprise, was in development with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci writing the script and J.J. Abrams producing and directing it, though his directorial status wasn't yet known at that point. I found this issue at Chapters, which is actually where I got many of the issues that I had of this magazine. I also got a couple of issues at the grocery store as well. But again, unlike Star Wars Insider, this magazine was very hard to come by as supply was erratic over the years. Which is why I ended up stopping with issue #51 (#178 for the U.K. edition).
Star Trek Magazine filled in the gaps that the loss of Star Trek: Communicator left when it ended it's run in 2005 as it played the exact same role as Communicator had as the official magazine for the franchise. This is where fans got alot of their Star Trek news from in addition to online sources such as the official Star Trek Twitter feed and the official Star Trek website. However this magazine ended in 2021. But unlike when Star Trek: Communicator ended in 2005, Star Trek wasn't dying off as a franchise. In fact it was getting stronger with the new shows Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and the then upcoming Strange New Worlds. But there was still another magazine waiting in the wings.
There doesn't seem to be a reason for the change from Star Trek Magazine to Star Trek Explorer though it does seem that it lines up more with Star Wars Insider, having similar departments to the Lucasfilm licensed magazine. There's only two issues out so far as the first issue came out in November 2021.
Alrighty folks that's going to be it for this part. I'll be posting part 2, where I discuss the three magazines published in the '90s that focused specifically on the shows that were coming out at the time. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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