Carol Frisbie

Fan
Name:	Carol Frisbie, Carol A. Frisbie, Carol Anne Frisbie (often erroneously spelled "Frisbee")
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Fandoms:	Star Trek: TOS, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues
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Carol Frisbie is a fan, writer, con volunteer, and zine publisher. In Who's Who in Star Trek Fandom (1977), she writes that she "has worked in an editorial capacity on 6-10 fanzines and is working on her own adult fiction fanzine scheduled for 1977" and that she had a hand in New Voyages.

She was the founder of Pulsar Press, an early slash fanzine publisher in Star Trek: TOS fandom. Among their most notable publications were the slash fanzines Thrust, Nightvisions, The Bloodstone, and Sun and Shadow. On occasion, Pulsar Press did publish gen fanzines.

She has won several Fan Q Awards for editing the zines Patterns, Eight Pieces of Brocade and Bitter Blood.

Frisbie reported in the 1982 fandom directory, BeNiF, that she had "worked for several years with Marshak & Culbreath on various publications, including Price of the Phoenix and New Voyages."

From the Author

In 1984, the author was interviewed in Not Tonight, Spock! #3. Here are some excerpts:

Carol's answer when asked: How did the zine’s creation come about? What made you decide to do a K/S zine?:

…I was familiar with a number of underground stories, and a large number of writers who had good ideas but nowhere to share them. Thrust seemed an answer—if I had the balls to do it. In 1977-78 there was a lot of vehement opposition to K/S, and I felt that a sensitive and intelligent treatment of the theme could only help to show that K/S represents more than the prurient fantasies of frustrated females—that it can be beautiful and moving as well as erotic, and that some of the best writing in fandom is K/S…. I wanted Thrust to carry a variety of first-time stories that would make people think, and that would promote my firm belief that, extrapolating on their given personalities, Kirk and Spock would gradually come to their bonding relationship through love, not because of innate homosexuality. Too casual a treatment would do the characters an injustice….

Carol's answer when asked: What was it like being one of the first K/S publishers in fandom? Did you have any idea of the significance or long range impact the zine would have?:

You had to be thick-skinned, because there was a lot of intensely emotional opposition coming your way; and level-headed, because you had a serious and delicate theme to protect and yourself along with it…. I sold Thrust in plain brown envelopes—Gayle F.'s gorgeous and explicit cover made that necessary—and with stringent warnings and age requisites. Despite all my caution, a member of the anti-K/S faction sent a copy to Shatner’s office. Shatner had the grace to smile and keep his silence, but his business manager (now son-in-law) was unhappy about it and we had a small go-round. He thought it all over, and later called me to apologize. All in all, Roddenberry, Shatner, and Nimoy took the theme with more equanimity that some uninvolved fans I know…. I hoped Thrust would make some kind of mark, both as a forum for writing and as a forum for the analysis of the K/S theme…. But it was the K/S theme itself that electrified fandom. As it added a dimension to the relationship between the two men, it added a new and lively dimension to fandom, providing a complex and invigorating idea to ponder, an emotional reference that took fandom by storm. I believe that the K/S theme has played a large part in keeping active fandom alive.

Carol's answer to the question -- K/S fandom has grown and expanded dramatically in the last several years. How do you feel it has changed since the early days and what directions do you see fandom taking in the future?:

If I were new to K/S fandom, I’d be blissfully happy with the vigor, openness and wealth of K/S. Hundreds of zines now exist, artwork ranging from the subtly provocative to the gorgeously obscene is readily available, and no one need be embarrassed to openly admit they are into K/S…. I do miss elements of the early days. Nothing was taken for granted then; nothing was old, or had been ‘done to death.’ Change, of course, is inevitable, even desirable—it has been a lot of years, after all. But I think sometimes that we are groping blindly to find new territories to explore within the K/S theme, and are veering off occasionally into some strange directions. S&M, B&D, alternate universes where violent rape is a matter of course… All this has to do with some pretty interesting stuff, but does it have much to do with Kirk and Spock??… Still, we’re a happy and sassy fandom. It frequently strikes me as phenomenal how we all got together and have stayed together, and how much truly fine work we’ve done in the name of pleasure….

A Fan Thanks Carol

Syn Ferguson writes of Carol:

I stand a little in awe of Carol. She's the best editor I've ever encountered. She wanted MRINN to be published so badly that she gave it up to another fan editor when she couldn't do it itself, and she cheered so long and hard for FREEDOM that I feel [my TrekStar Award] half hers. Carol was very patient with my ignorance of fandom, conventions publishing, .etc., and a wonderful mentor.

Interview

• Where Are They Now: Carol Frisbie (1989)

Zines with Carol's Work

• Bitter Blood
• The Bloodstone
• Contact
• Covenant
• Deathdance
• Interphrase
• Nightvisions
• Patterns
• Sun and Shadow
• Thrust