Alderaan
You may be looking for Chronicles of the House of Alderaan.
| Zine | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Alderaan |
| Publisher: | Kzinti Press |
| Editor(s): | Jeff Johnston (all) & with Allyson Whitfield (issues #3-#10) (there were 15 issues in all) |
| Type: | |
| Date(s): | February 1978- August 1981 |
| Frequency: | |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Star Wars, meta |
| Language: | English |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Alderaan is the very first Star Wars letterzine. It ran for fifteen issues. Each issue is around 8 pages.
Issue Summaries
The Editors
Jeff Johnston was the main editor of all issues, and Allyson Whitfield was co-editor of issues #3-1#10. There were fifteen issues in all.
From a note by Allyson Whitfield in Jundland Wastes #1 and in Datazine #11: "As of February 19, 1981, I am no longer associated with the Star Wars and SF media letterzine Alderaan. Since I am no longer in any possession of the records, any fan seeking information about Alderaan will have to contact the editor/publisher Jeff Johnston."
A Introductory Ad
"A new SW letterzine designed to open up lines of communication in SW fandom & to provide fans with info & topics for discussion. Single issues: 65¢: Subscriptions: $1.80/3, published approx. every 8 weeks. Checks for SASEs for info to: Kzinti Press." [1]
The End of the Run
After it ceased publication in 1981, Carol Mularski and Alderaan's former co-editor Allyson Dyer, picked up Alderaan's subscription list for their new letterzine, Comlink. Comlink soon developed into a multi-media letterzine, however, and slipped out of the focus of Star Wars fandom.
Its Place in Star Wars Zine History
The first Star Wars zines:
- Hyper Space (fiction and non-fiction) ties with The Force (non-fiction) as the first zines with a focus of Star Wars. Both zines were published in June 1977.
- Warped Space #26/27, a multimedia zine published in July 1977, had a Star Wars cover, the artist was Gordon Carleton.
- Warped Space #28 published the first Star Wars story in a multimedia zine in July 1977.
- Moonbeam #3 (focus of Star Wars fiction and art) [2][3] and the letterzine, Alderaan, a letterzine with a Star Wars focus, were both published in February 1978.
- Against the Sith (Star Wars fiction and non-fiction) and Skywalker (Star Wars fiction) were both published in April 1978. [4]
History of Alderaan
 flyer for some back issues |
 1977 flyer from Interstat |
 |
The history of the Alderaan zine has been documented extensively along with other Star Wars letterzines of the time by Maggie Nowakowska in her article The Incomparable Jundland Wastes.
Below is an excerpt: By the time ALDERAAN ceased publication in October 1981, nearly every Star Wars subject that would be discussed in the 10 years to come—save the revelations in RETURN OF THE JEDI—had been mentioned at least once in a LoC. Examples:
- Did Vader choose to do evil, was he tricked into supporting the Empire, or was he simply inattentive. Is what he doing really evil at all?
- What is the historical background of the Empire? Is it a legitimate government?
- What is Leia's status now that the Senate is dissolved?
- Is it possible to write a female character into a SW fan story without that character simply representing wish fulfillment on the part of the author, especially if that character has a romantic interest in one of the heroes?
- Is Han Solo's masculine appeal overshadowing Luke's role as a hero?
- Is THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK a better film than STAR WARS?
- Who believes that Vader is really Luke's father; who doesn't?"
Other Star Wars Letterzines
- Alderaan (February 1978 to August 1981) (morphed into the multimedia letterzine, Comlink)
- Bound by the Force (1982-1997) -- contains some mulifandom content
- Darkside (1994-1997)
- Jundland Wastes (March, perhaps June 1981 to September 1983)
- Jundland, Too (February 1984 to May 1984)
- Rebel Alliance (1993-1994)
- Scoundrel (late 1983 or fall 1986)
- Southern Enclave (1983 to 2000)
- Tusken Farms (1993-?)
References
- ^ printed in The Clipper Trade Ship #23 (October 1978)
- ^ The editor of "Moonbeam" says: "I believed for almost 30 years that it was in fact the first primarily Star Wars fiction fanzine, but I recently learned that Skywalker, the exceptional Star Wars zine edited by Bev Clark, was in fact first by a couple of weeks. Ah well. I was still one of the first, and probably the first on the East Coast.."Main Moonbeam Page, Archived version.
- ^ Actually, according to the dates on the zines themselves, "Moonbeam" was first; perhaps there was an understood wiggle-room with the distribution?
- ^ From Nancy Duncan in "Against the Sith's" editorial: "We know of two other SW zines so far, Hyperspace .... and Skywalker." This statement is contradicted in December 1985 by the editor of "Skywalker," Bev Clark, in comments to Southern Enclave #10: "AGAINST THE SITH came out a few weeks before SKYWALKER, no more than six. Neither was the first SW fanzine, exactly. The very first fanzine was a small, poorly produced effort out of Long Beach, called THE FORCE; it was more like a traditional SF fanzine in that it didn't have much fiction. It was also what is bluntly called in SF fandom, a crudzine. The first fanzine to print all SW fiction, though admittedly as a single issue of a fanzine that was not devoted to SW to the exclusion of all else, was MOONBEAM 3, which came out in the late fall of 1977 or the early spring of 1978 before either AGAINST THE SITH or SKYWALKER, at any rate. SKYWALKER was certainly in preparation by then, however, it began in September, 1977." It appears that either Bev Clark is mis-remembering the date of her own fanzine's publication, or there is a difference of opinion about what constitutes the "beginning" of a zine, and that perhaps Clark is referring to when she first started collecting material, rather to when the zine was available to fans.