The Starlog Project: Starlog #60, July 1982: Sixth Anniversary Issue

Upon completion of its sixth year of publication, Starlog celebrates with another of its 100-page special issues, chocked full of extra pages, features, and color. In news about the Starlog brand, this is a busy month: The company releases the third edition of The Best of Starlog this month, complete with Spock's photo on its cover. Also out this month is the second edition of the TV Episode Guides photo guidebook, the first edition of The Bloody Best of Fangoria, three new licensed film magazines (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Annie, and Rocky III), and the latest (and last, I think) Starlog Records release, The Avengers. Whew!

Starlog #60
100 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $3.95

The cover's another blocked-photo design, so there's no one photo that dominates (after all, the main message is that this is a "SCIENCE FICTION SPECTACULAR -- More Pages! More Color! Bonus Surprises!" as the roof text shouts). But the contents page is a departure from past anniversary issues: there's no Howard Zimmerman-created collage; instead, there's a big photo from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Kerry O'Quinn's From the Bridge editorial, "Finding Your Telephone Booth," is another in his series of inspirational columns, though this time it's illustrated with a black-and-white drawing by O'Quinn, showing a nude man (nothing salacious, kids); Communications letters include a remembrance of Philip K. Dick, feedback on Zimmerman's Greenpeace column, news from Leonard Nimoy's fan club, a reprint of a Trek-themed Bloom County strip, and more; short news items in Log Entries include a note about computer ads featuring William Shatner (Commodore) and Isaac Asimov (Radio Shack), the news that Trek II has changed its title to The Wrath of Khan from The Vengeance of Khan, a sneak peek at E.T. and Poltergeist, Norman Spinrad's novel The Iron Dream re-issue was banned in West Germany, feedback on the audience previews of Conan the Barbarian, and more.

Ed Naha explores "The Re-Making of Star Trek"; Bjo Trimble introduces her family in Fan Scene; Steve Swires interviews The Thing's director, John Carpenter, who talks Thing, El Diablo, Halloween II, and more; and Susan Adamo and Bob Greenberger provide an overview of toys and games for the year (including the oh-so-1982 sidebar, "Pac-Man Gobbles up a Nation").

The special color anniversary section kicks off with photo reviews of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Time Bandits, Superman II, Heavy Metal, Quest for Fire, Escape from New York, Outland, Clash of the Titans, and Heartbeeps; Eddie Berganza compiles a three-page index to Starlog articles for issues #47 through #58; Robert Greenberger reviews SF TV for the past year; David Everett profiles English fantasy illustrator Chris Achilleos (with some of his colorful paintings displayed, of course); Ron Miller's Futures Past column continues its look at the spaceship's evolution; four pages of anniversary greetings include everyone from Isaac Asimov ("In six days God created the Heaven and Earth. In six years, the staff of Starlog, with somewhat lesser powers, has managed to create a magazine that fills a niche no other does. On the seventh day, God rested, but I have a feeling that Starlog will keep right on going.") to Robert A. Heinlein ("... Only six years old? It feels to me as if I had always been watching the mail for the new issue of Starlog, then reading it at once while more stodgy magazines waited until I felt up to it. ...") to Buster Crabbe ("You've done a magnificent job. Keep it up.") and more; Robert Greenberger interviews director Ridley Scott about Blade Runner; in his Soaring column, David Gerrold imagines Starlog in the year 2001 (let's just say he got his predictions wrong); the three-part reprint of John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?" short story concludes; David Hutchison previews the new Disney film Tron; David Hutchison interviews Academy Award-winning matte artist Albert Whitlock (Ghost Story, The Hindenburg, Diamonds Are Forever, The Birds, etc.) in the SFX section; Michael A. Banks looks at more "Hi-Tech Games"; several artists and wits have their talent showcased in Quest; and Howard Zimmerman's Lastword talks Blade Runner.

"Described as an electronic science-fiction fantasy, Tron is the story of a young computer game wizard, Flynn (Jeff Bridges), whose computer game programs have been stolen by Ed Dillinger (David Warner), the executive vice-president of ENCOM. ... Dillinger's Master Control Program has become so powerful that it is now using Dillinger rather than the other way around."

--David Hutchison, writer, "Tron"

To view previous Starlog issue descriptions, click on "Starlog Internet Archive Project" in the keywords below.