the lighter side of the force

Zine
Title:	the lighter side of the force
Publisher:
Editor(s):	Carolyn Hedge
Date(s):	1980
Series?:
Medium:	fanzine
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	Star Wars
External Links:
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front cover, Susan Crites

the lighter side of the force is a Star Wars 46-page fanzine anthology edited by Carolyn Hedge and published in 1980.

back cover, Damaris LaLoge

It contains ten stories.

The art is by Richard Arnold, Becky Aulenbach, Debi Barbich, Nancy Brown, Susan Crites, Hans Dietrich, Melody Frame (cover), Carol Hedge, Demaris LoLoge, and Frank Panucci.

It was followed by a second fanzine The Lighter Side Strikes Back.

Zine's Dedication

"The Lighter Side of the Force is dedicated to undercover Jedis everywhere... their friendship, their ideals, and most of all, their sense of humor.,"

The Editorial

Way back in 1977 ("Was it that long ago?" asked Susan. "Yes," mumbled Caro.) there was a movie that unexpectedly became a major source of our recreation. For nearly a year we would, at intervals, pile into Galileo, the faithful Toyota, and go plunk down four bucks to see our heroes in action, not to mention adventure. ("Marvelous legs on Darth," Caro would sigh. "Fie," said Susan. "Eat your popcorn.")

Afterwards it became traditional to go and frighten the people at Denny's (you remember them—the all-night coffee shop and local cantina?) by consuming mass quantities of coffee and laughing hysterically at our own SWars jokes, especially the cartoons we drew on the placemats.

Just so happened that—at the time—we were planning Sublight Reading #1 (out of print) and so some of the cartoons (re-drawn onto plain white paper) found their way into a section called Lighter Side of the Force. We liked the title so much we stole it from ourselves for this zine.

We had a few cartoons that didn't quite get done in time for the 'blight (#1) and we didn't want to wait a whole 'nother year for 'blight #2 (it turned out to be a few seasons longer than that-see next explanation), but by themselves they weren't enough to fill up even a 3 page zine. So the word went forth that we were looking for SWars humor. Amazingly enough, we got some! So we started saving up money.

Star Con Denver 3 was to be held September 1 & 2, 1979, and we figured with a whole summer to work in, surely to goodness we'd have it ready to sell by then. Wrong again. So far, any time we've selected a Star Con for a zine's debut, one of our mechanicals goes on the fritz. This time Galileo, the formerly faithful Toyota, blew his motivator. Amazingly enough, Toyota motivators cost exactly the same amount as whatever you have in the bank to pay for a print run on a zine.

So instead of September, 1979, we got this out in January, 1980. It would have been sooner, but we had Snowflakes in November. (It seemed slightly silly to drive through a major snowstorm to pick up A Handful of Snowflakes and Other Trek Tales from the printer. We could have picked up as many handfuls as we wanted right in our own front yard. It was called the Blizzard of '79.)

November was bad, December was worse. You don't want to hear about it. Suffice it to say, we produced this zine under conditions that make life in the spicemines of Kessel look kinda good. (If you really want to hear about it, write Susan. Enclose a SASE and sympathy)

That seems to be all the explanations we've got. Would you like to get on to the zine now? (We thought so!)

"Father's Day" inspired another fan to write an mpreg: see "A Corellian Condition".

Contents

• Editorial (2)
• Father's Day by Susan Mathews (3)
• cartoons by Melody Frame (7)
• Cooked Goose by Joyce Yasner (11)
• The Longest Wait by Elyse Dickenson (13)
• The Love of a Good Woman by Mary Sue Donym (21)
• cartoons by Nancy Brown (27)
• cartoons by Debi Barbich (28)
• cartoons by Susan Crites (30)
• Stark Wars by Susan Crites and Nancy Brown (a con skit performed at Star Con in 1978.) (32)

Inside Sample

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Reactions and Reviews

I've only read "Cooked Goose" Joyce Yasner who is privy to all Darth Vader's secrets.