Force Fan Quarterly

Zine
Title:	Force Fan Quarterly
Publisher:	Sheila Marie D'Agnese/ Sheila Rochambeau
Editor(s):
Date(s):	1979-1980ish
Series?:
Medium:	print
Genre:	gen
Fandom:	Star Wars
Language:	English
External Links:	talked about here, also contains some content/WebCite
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Force Fan Quarterly is a Star Wars anthology of fiction, non-fiction, and art edited and written by Sheila Marie D'Agnese. There are five or six issues.

cover of issue #3

An Interview with the Author

“I think I did five or six issues of Force Fan. My brother Mike tried to help me by selling some at school, but he got in trouble over it. That was the end of my career in publishing!”

Rochambeau not only wrote the fanzine’s story and poems, but also drew the cover art and interior illustrations. “I just traced a photo of Obi-Wan and Luke and tried to make Obi-Wan look younger. But Luke isn’t really Luke though [in the drawing]. He’s supposed to be his father, and I drew a dark robe on him because I thought it made him look like a Jedi, like Obi-Wan. And I put Darth Vader in the background, but he’s supposed to be young and handsome at the time, even though you can’t see him too well. When I saw The Empire Strikes Back, I thought, ‘Oh, man, I got it all wrong!’”

As for her “Clone Knights,” Rochambeau says, “I think I traced a picture of stormtroopers for the bodies, then just decorated the armor. I wasn’t very good at drawing hands and feet. I don’t know why, but I thought all the clones would have bald heads. I drew goggles across their foreheads because without goggles they reminded me too much of Telly Savalas.”

Asked about the existence of other issues of Force Fan, Rochambeau believes they may be lost to time. “My mother threw out my only copies, but that’s what happens, right? It’s kind of embarrassing, how much I loved Luke and Han, but I was just a teenager. I’m just glad you didn’t find one of the fanzines I wrote about the guys in Battlestar Galactica.”

About Issue #3

Can Star Wars fans predict the future? Consider this… In 1979, a young girl envisioned the Clone Wars as a time when Jedi Knights traveled in Y-wings, encountered Jabba on Tatooine, and served alongside clone warriors...

The Force Fan Quarterly #3 includes the third part of a serialized story, along with poems and drawings. “The poems are, well, interesting,” Vilmur says with a chuckle, but he found the story’s content “remarkably prescient.” The story aspect regarding clone soldiers is especially noteworthy because details were scant about the Clone Wars until the release of Attack of the Clones in 2002. Before that, Star Wars fans had no idea whether clones might be friends or foes of the Jedi, so I was impressed that the fanzine’s author envisioned Jedi allied with ‘clone knights.’

“There’s also a neat mention of the planet Skye, which indicates the author read Marvel Comics’ first Star Wars Annual, and was trying to work with the continuity, or rather the continuity that existed at the time.” Longtime fans of Star Wars comics will recall that particular Annual as the one that helped perpetuate the idea that Luke Skywalker’s father and Darth Vader were separate characters who served together in the Clone Wars, an idea that the fanzine’s author embraced.

“Another thing that got my attention,” Vilmur continues, “was that the author, Sheila Marie D’Agnese, imagined Imperial Shocktroopers served Emperor Palpatine during the Clone Wars. While this might sound odd now, it’s actually kind of consistent with what we knew back in 1979. The Star Wars movie novelization identified Palpatine as the Imperial leader, and Bantha Tracks [the newsletter of the OfficialStar Wars Fan Club] indicated Boba Fett wore the armor of an Imperial Shocktrooper. The fanzine’s author may have been just a kid at the time, but it looked to me like she was really into studying all this information and did a commendable job of trying to make it all mesh.”

Asked about the quality of the writing, Vilmur concedes, “Sure, it’s amateurish, but that’s a big part of its charm. Come on, it was written by a kid over thirty years ago! That said, I thought the story had some genuine energy to it, and it did grab my attention. I mean, what fan wouldn’t want to read an oldStar Wars adventure featuring Obi-Wan and his ‘friend’ Darth Vader?”

Issue 1

• a short story about a young Obi-Wan Kenobi using the Force to hypnotize an alien
• poems and drawings

Issue 2

• the first two chapters of "The Clone Wars Warriors: From the Adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi" by Sheila Marie D'Agnese
• poems and drawings

AUTHORS NOTE: The Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi went to the desert planet Tatooine with his pupil Darth Vader and his friend the Jedi Knight Skywalker (he’s Luke’s father but George Lucas has not revealed his first name yet) to stop Emperor Palpatine’s Imperial Shocktroopers from attacking poor Jawas during the Clone Wars. But before they could reach the Jawa village in the mountains near where they landed their Y-wing starfighters they were captured by diabolical killers who work for the spice merchant Jabba the Hut. They are hoping their clone allies will help them get out of Jabba’s hideout and get away so they can help the Jawas.

Issue 3

Force Fan Quarterly 3 was published in Fall 1979.

• "The Clone Wars Warriors: From the Adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi" by Sheila Marie D'Agnese (chapter three, perhaps other chapters)
• poems and drawings

Issue 4

• The Dark Skye
• other unknown content