Timeline of K/S Fandom

Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
Dates:	1967 - present
See also:	History of K/S Fandom, Kirk/Spock (TOS), Kirk-Spock, List of Star Trek: The Original Series Fanzines, History of Slash Fandom, List of Star Trek TOS Zines Published While the Show Was Still On the Air
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Below is a timeline of K/S fandom from 1967 to 2012.

For a similar timeline, see Timeline of Star Trek Fandom.

1960s

1967

• While it contains no slash, the first Star Trek fanzine, Spockanalia, is published by Sherna Comerford and Devra Langsam

1968

• A Fan Campaign succeeds in getting Star Trek renewed for a third season. And though it is cancelled after the third, it then had enough eps for syndication, helping it gain popularity through the 1970s
• The Ring of Soshern by Jennifer Guttridge is written and circulated among friends in England.

1970s

1972

• Carrie Peak publishes the first issue of the first "adult" Star Trek fanzine, Grup, in September

1974

• The first K/S story (in a zine), "A Fragment Out of Time" by Diane Marchant is published in Grup #3 (the first 'adult' Star Trek zine)

1975

• Star Trek Lives! is published; its chapter on fanfiction introduces the idea of fan fiction to huge numbers of fans who'd never heard of it before, piquing interest and spreading the activity.

1976

• Alternative: The Epilog to Orion is the first K/S zine to be published by Gerry Downes.

1977

• The height of the debate on pornography and indecency in Star Trek fanfic. (Note: K/S had little or nothing to do with this.)
• The Rack is published in Contact #4 as a response to K/S.
• Obsc'zine 1 is published and includes the first example of explicit K/S art, by Gayle F

1978

• The K&S vs K/S debate was prominent. Fans began complaining about the debate itself.
• Thrust is the first K/S-only anthology to be published by Carol Frisbie.

1979

• In December, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is released, rejuvenating ST and K/S fandom. From Boldly Writing: The movie "captured the imagination (or disdain) of many fans, revived the waning interest of some old-timers, brought new fans into the fold, and gave everyone something new and different to discuss and write stories about. It was the beginning of a new era of Star Trek fandom and fanzines -- the movie era."
• The movie launches hundreds of post-Gol stories.
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out, and perhaps more importantly for K/S fans, so did the novelization by Gene Roddenberry. In it, he coined a new word for the Kirk/Spock relationship, saying that Spock thought of Kirk as his t'hy'la, a Vulcan word that, the footnote tells us, can mean "friend," "brother" or "lover." K/S fans took it as canonical justification; after all Roddenberry didn't have to include "lover" in the definition. Strangely, non-K/Sers frequently tried to use it as "proof" that we were wrong. The Footnote: An Explication de Texte, published in 1980, is an awe-inspiring step-by-step refutation of the idea that Roddenberry's footnote disproves K/S.
• The Rack, published, a novel-length story that attempted to refute K/S. Unauthorized sequels appeared soon afterward, preceding similar 'fixes' for stories like Consequences in The Professionals fandom.
• The movie rejuvenates all factions of Trek fandom; old fans come back, new fans arrive in droves -- and many of those fans become K/S fans.
• Nancy Kipax and friends hold the first K/S Con houseparty -- held annually until 1987.

Naked Times #1 (1978). The zine series ran to 32 issues; the last was published in 1994.

• The new movie may have unleashed K/Sers' creative forces. After just a few K/S zines are published in the 70s, over 200 K/S zines came out in the 1980s. (There are over 500 K/S zines listed in the K/S Database, ^{Archived version}.)

1980s

1980

• Forum #12 started the tradition of identifying fanzines by a code telling what the contents were. "ST" meant a (non-K/S) Star Trek fanzine, "K/S" for K/S, "SW" meant a Star Wars fanzine, etc.
• The first KiScon house party is held.

1981

• At the first MediaWestCon, non-K/S fans were beginning to complain that "all the zines are K/S", even though the number was probably less than 1/4. Score!
• First issue of T'hy'la is published.

1982

• Syn Ferguson's Courts of Honor is advertised for sale; actual copies are still years away.
• Wrath of Khan hits the theatres. Kirk and Spock's closeness in the movie revitalizes K/S.
• First zine to come out incorporating Wrath of Khan was Still Out of Bounds, Old Friend
• 22 K/S zines came out in '82.

1983

• First open K/S convention, IDICon, in Houston, Texas. The con sponsored their own awards of merit, which they called the K/Star Awards.
• 17 K/S zines came out

1984

• In June, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is released in the United States.
• Harlan Ellison reviews The Search for Spock in Asimov's Science Fiction, a prozine which appears on newsstands nationwide. He mentions the fact that Star Trek has a fandom which has developed a culture of its own, with amateur publications, conventions, and "Kirk-shtups-Spock soft-core porn stories."

Cover of T'hy'la #4 (1984)

• David Gerrold's updated World of Star Trek is published. In the chapter about conventions, he included a mention (complete with exclamation marks of disbelief) about a ridiculous idea called “slash”, which concerned Kirk and Spock having sex with each other. Fangirls the world over realized that there was a name for the thoughts they'd been having, and They Were Not Alone. (Fandom owes him a kick in the ass, and a cookie.)
• First Time, a K/S anthology zine that eventually had sixty issues, publishes issue #1.
• 23 K/S zines published

1985

• Prominent K/S fan Toni Cardinal-Price was killed by drunk drivers. After her death, her stories were pulled together into an in memoriam zine: The Stories of Toni Cardinal-Price.
• Killing Time published. After years of fannish whining about how horrible Pro Trek books were, and how fans could do it better, a prolific K/S writer and publisher sold Pocket Books her Trek manuscript. While not overtly slashy, the manuscript definitely wrote a Kirk and Spock closer than most pro Trek books did. The first printing was recalled after it was discovered that an earlier, even slashier version of the manuscript had made it to the press.
• In the December there are 42 K/S fanzines and 160 non-K/S ST fanzines.
• Joanna Russ publishes Another Addict Raves About K/S in Nome 8, before publishing it in one of her books later that year. Essay in Nome is widely praised -- modified version of the essay in a book aimed outside the K/S community raises consternation. Some fans feared that by promoting K/S as pornography, that new writers would join the community for the erotic first, instead for Kirk and Spock first. A fan quoted in Enterprising Women said about Russ's essay, "This stuff is private, and taking it out into public isn't going to get you well liked."
• Open Letter to K/S Fandom by David Gerrold
• Open Letter to the Editors of All K/S Zines & All Other "/" Media Zines
• K/S adzine/reviewzine/letterzine Not Tonight Spock! debuts.
• 34 K/S zines published

1986

• A Camille Bacon-Smith article titled "Spock Among the Women" comes out in The New York Times Book Review on November 16, 1986. Article explains what Star Trek fanzines are, but doesn't give contact information.
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home comes out.
• ST:TNG is announced. Gene Roddenberry states, "Eventually Picard and Riker will have a closer relationship than Kirk and Spock."
• As part of the Great Usenet Renaming, net.startrek becomes rec.arts.startrek.
• First K/S convention, IDICon, in Houston, Texas. The con sponsored their own awards of merit, which they called the K/Star Awards.

Cover to Courts of Honor‎ (1985)

• Courts of Honor won a Fan Q for Best Trek Novel. (Years later, claiming that the Fan Q staff didn't like slash, slash fandom will create its own slash-only award at MediaWestCon.)
• Patricia Frazer Lamb and Diana Veith, both huge K/S fans, publish first academic paper on K/S, "Romantic Myth, Transcendence, and Star Trek Zines"
• Star Trek IV comes out
• In the October/November issue of Datazine, the zine-buyer's bible, the Sears Catalog Wishbook of zine fandom, the editors began to use two labels for Star Trek fanzines: "ST" for non-K/S fanzines, and "K/S" for that genre. In Datazine's December issue, in the December issue, there were 42 K/S fanzines and 160 non-K/S ST fanzines listed. Universal Translator soon followed suit. 35 K/S zines published; according to the editor of The LOC Connection, there were 31 K/S zines published in the U.S.; she did not list K/S zines published elsewhere

1987

• Surak Awards started -- split evenly between work in General zines, and work done in Age Statement Required zines.
• Original version of The Ring of Soshern published in a zine.
• 37 K/S zines published -- from this point on, most K/S zines are published by the same 5 or 6 'big' fan presses (Merry Men Press, Mkashef Enterprises, Pon Farr Press, Natasha Solten) and a few others; most of the zines are the next one in a series (i.e., Daring Attempt #7, Daring Attempt #8; First Time #13, First Time #14, First Time #15). According to the editor of The LOC Connection, there were 31 K/S zines published in the U.S.; she did not list K/S zines published elsewhere
• First ClosetCon held in England

1988

Cover of First Time #6 (1986) by Caren Parnes. The first issue is from 1984 and this zine series is still being published.

• Last IDICon
• 30 K/S zines published

1989

• In June, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is released in North America. Star Trek V is generally considered the worst original series Star Trek film.
• Star Trek V comes out.
• First Koon-ut-CaliCon K/S con
• 27 K/S zines published

1990s

1990

• alt.startrek.creative appeared. Soon after, alt.tv.star-trek.tos started.
• 35 K/S zines published

1991

• Trekiverse, the main archive for fanfiction posted to Alt.startrek.creative, Alt.startrek.creative.all-ages, and Alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated (ASCEM) is established and has been continuously maintained since then.
• In December, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is released in North America. It is the last original series film.
• 25 K/S zines published

1992

• 28 K/S zines published

1993

• 27 K/S zines published

1994

• 23 K/S zines published
• Star Trek: Generations is released in November. It is the first Star Trek: The Next Generation film, but features three original series characters -- Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov. Kirk dies.

1995

• Killa (as Killashandra) posts the first part of Turning Point, the first attributed K/S story on the internet, to the USENET group alt.sex.fetish.startrek.
• 13 K/S zines published -- beginning of the end; never again are more than 10-15 K/S zines published in a year.

1997

• The editors of the K/S Press letterzine begin hosting the Philon Awards to recognize K/S writers and artists. The awards run until 2004.

1999

• The first open KiScon convention is held in Texas by Jenna Sinclair.

2000s

2000

• June 23, 2000 the [www.kardasi.com/fuh-q-fest/ Spock Fuh-Q Fest], ^{Archived version} is launched. The Kirk Fuh-Q Fest soon follows. These two festival leads K/S fans to create the first Kirk/Spock Online Festival, ^{Archived version}.

2001

• The first issue of the Kirk/Spock (TOS) e-zine Side by Side is released by Lady Kardasi Productions. The last issue (#23) is released in 2007.

2002

• The first Kirk/Spock Advent Calendar is launched by kira-nerys and Lady Kardasi Productions as part of a much larger Slash Advent Calendar. This is one of the earliest advent calendars, and the first of its kind in the Trek fandom.

2003

• The Yahoo group Kirk/Spock Central is launched.

2005

• Killa launches the Kirk/Spock Fanfiction Archive.

2006

• The kirkspock [1] community is launched on LiveJournal by catalenamara

2008

• KiScon 2008 is held in Los Angeles, CA in June.

2009

• Star Trek (2009) is released on May 8, 2009. The film reboots the Star Trek: The Original Series by introducing an alternative reality caused by a time-space anomaly from the actions of Ambassador Spock (TOS). This brings in thousands of new fans to the fandom. However, due to the change in dynamics of all the relationships in the rebooted film due to the change in canon (as compared to TOS), there is some kerfuffle/fanwank.^{[citation needed]}(need to elaborate)
• Kirk/Spock Fanfiction Archive starts allowing Star Trek (2009) fanfiction. And various communities decide on whether they would accept AOS discussion, fanworks, etc, with some communities choosing to continue focus on only TOS, and some communities such as the Kirk/Spock Slash Community on LJ choosing to allow both.
• Star Trek Big Bang is founded, with several K/S stories submitted, including Deastar's So Wise We Grow.
• K/S Advent is founded by Arminaa and Amanda Warrington on LiveJournal

2010s

2010

• Star Trek Reverse Bang is founded by Ileliberte with signups posted in January. Among the many pairings, nine stories contained Kirk/Spock slash or pre-slash/friendship.
• Kathy Resch launches an initiative, working with authors, to publish their zine stories on the K/S Archive and allow them a much wider audience.

2011

• The first Kirk/Spock (2009) e-zine, Universal Constant is released in January, edited by Arminaa. A second issue follows in September of that year.
• KiScon 2011 is held in Los Angeles, CA in June.

2012

• Launch of the Kirk/Spock Big Bang in March.
• KiScon 2012 is held in the UK in June.
• 4,000th story posted to the K/S Archive