The Starlog Project: Starlog #167, June 1991: Hulk Hogan Conquers Starlog

Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan gets a cover spot this issue. He was one of the first big wrestlers to make the transition to other forms of entertainment (he’s the one who didn’t become governor of Minnesota).

Though this does bring to mind the early 1980’s jokey flirtation with professional wrestling in the pages of sister magazine Fangoria, it’s really nothing more than Starlog looking to sell some more copies at the newsstand with a big name. Still, editor David McDonnell notes in his editorial, “I never expected to put Hulk Hogan on the cover of Starlog. ... Here’s the truth of the matter: We had six cover possibilities. Then, two of the movies were rescheduled for later release. Two other interviews were delayed so they would happen after we absolutely had to go to press. And the TV movie perversely offered sparse pickings when it came to color photos. Which left the space comedy spoof. And it had these terrific pix of the alien monster created by Steve Johnson. So ...”

I’ll just note that Starlog’s publishing company at this time was also publishing a handful of professional wrestling magazines (Ringside Wrestling, Wrestling All-Stars, etc.), which reportedly at one time controlled more than 50 percent of the wrestling magazine market.

Starlog #167
80 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $4.50

On the inside front cover is an advertisement for The Rocketeer, which I mention only because I’m sure none of you even knew this movie existed. I saw it. Twice, I think. But I think my two tickets were the sole box office revenue earned by that film. But it’s a charming little adventure film that never got a Starlog cover story (yeah, that's right, Suburban Commando’s on the cover and Rocketeer got nada – it still hurts). But the Starlog team did do the movie justice with its sister magazine, Comics Scene, where it got a cover story (for the August 1991 issue, #20).

The rundown: Hulk Hogan’s Suburban Commando is on the cover (does that monster look to you like a Predator gone horribly wrong?); a Gremlins photo (sans any Gremlins) is featured on the contents page. The Communications section includes a letter from writer Jerome Bixby, who corrects an impression left by his interview in #164 and notes that Paramount turned down his sequel to his “Mirror, Mirror” episode of original Star Trek, plus readers comment on everything from First Men in the Moon to Beauty & the Beast to plans for the Sci Fi Channel, plus Mike Fish features the Body Snatchers in his Creature Profile comic; in his Medialog column, David McDonnell reports that Star Trek VI will indeed finally be made, but the declining box office of the films plus the aging cast “make it all but certain ... that this will be the last Star Trek film with the classic cast”; in his Videolog column, David Hutchison notes such recent genre releases as Predator 2, The Jungle Book, and Hooray for Horrorwood; and the Fan Network pages include Lia Pelosi’s directory of fan clubs and publications, plus the convention calendar.

It’s a sad day in science-fictionland, as Starlog devotes four pages to a Tribute section of obituaries: Lee Goldberg on James Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum, Pat Jankiewicz on Beetlejuice and Top Gun screenwriter Warren Skaaren, Michael Mallory on stuntman and actor Tom Steele, Dan Scapperotti on actor Henry Brandon (Drums of Fu Manchu, The Searchers, Buck Rogers, and other classics), and Bill Warren on actor Keye Luke (most recently the mysterious merchant in the Gremlins movies, but perhaps most famously the “Number One Son” Lee Chan from the old Charlie Chan series); and in his From the Bridge column, Kerry O’Quinn gives an amusing account of his decision to take motorcycle lessons.

Adam Pirani interviews actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, who portrays Maid Marian in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves (and who also discusses her less-than-enjoyable time acting in James Cameron’s The Abyss); Craig W. Chrissinger talks with fantasy writer Jennifer Robertson (Sword Breaker, The Song of Homana, etc.); Mark Burman profiles actor Patrick Bergin, who plays the lead in the TV movie The Adventures of Robin Hood (with a sidebar on the movie’s director, John Irvin); Bill Warren pens the cover story, a preview of the Hulk Hogan space comedy Suburban Commando; Karen Funk Blocher and Teresa Murray check in with former Doctor Who star Jon Pertwee, who tells a tale of the travails of working on that ultra-low-budget series, and in the process lifts the covers on British class warfare: “Due to budgetary considerations, high production values weren’t always in evidence – even with as fundamental a prop as the TARDIS console. According to Pertwee, the console once had to be altered for a scene in which he was to remove and replace a component. A man was sent to the set, armed with hammer and chisel. ‘Where do you want the hole, guv?’ the workman said. Pertwee indicated the appropriate place in the console, and advised the man to be careful. ‘Right,’ the man said, and struck the chisel. The blow sent a huge crack across the console panel, splitting it. ‘So, I hit him,’ Perwee says. But there was retribution. ‘All the unions immediately went out on strike. Fortunately, the producer backed me up.’”

Tom Weaver has a hat trick this issue, with three articles on the Creature from the Black Lagoon and its sequels – he interviews actress Julie Adams, who played the femme fatale in the original movie (and who notes that, despite enjoying her movie, “I didn’t really want to be in the sequels, to tell you the truth. So, I was happy that they didn’t come to me anyway”; he also talks with Ricou Browning, “the extraordinary swimmer who donned the scaly foam rubber suit of the Creature from the Black Lagoon” and who actually enjoyed working in the sequel; and he also talks with actress Lori Nelson, who was the femme fatale of Revenge of the Creature (plus a short sidebar on the late Leigh Snowden, the female lead of The Creature Walks Among Us); and David McDonnell’s Liner Notes column includes his smack my forehead why did I put Hulk Hogan on the cover comments, plus he notes some minor design changes to the magazine (such as spiffing up the department logos and moving around the glossy and non-glossy pages, as noted last issue).

“[The Abyss producers] also have this kind of autocratic way of filming – and I would like to say to all producers, ‘You hired me, you didn’t buy me. I have a right to know what my schedule is,’ and I do have that right because I haven’t actually signed over – because you do feel that after a while, you’ve actually signed over your free will, your time is not your own. They gave us one day a week off, but we stood for hour after hour after hour, and for days on end, and couldn’t leave this small town, because, ‘Well, we don’t know when we’ll need you.' ... I just think there are friendlier environments, and there’s a kind of a maturity in dealing with other people.”

–Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, actress, interviewed by Adam Pirani: “Princess of Thieves”

To see more, click on Starlog Internet Archive Project below or visit The Starlog Project’s permanent home.

New Doctor Who on Cover of UK's Gay Times

It's a triple-whammy for this blog: Science fiction, gays, and magazines. Three of our favorite topics.

DoorQ has this preview of the new issue of Britain's Gay Times magazine, featuring on the cover the new actor to portray Doctor Who, Matt Smith.

If DoorQ can mix science fiction and homosexuality, then shouldn't GT be able to do it?

The Starlog Project: Starlog #34, May 1980: My First Starlog

Okay, here it gets a bit personal. It goes back to Stangel's Super Valu grocery store in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. I, a 12-year-old science fiction fan, had been eyeing and paging through the Starlogs and Fantastic Films and Future Lifes at the magazine rack for months, but only now ("now" being April 1980) did I save up enough of my weekly allowance to purchase a copy of Starlog. I was hooked instantly, and I was a constant reader for three decades until the magazine closed in 2009. I absolutely absorbed Starlog #34, and decades later I could still recount many of the articles even without picking up the issue. The reason wasn't quite as pathetic as it sounds; I did have a life, but in Starlog I found two things: a magazine devoted to something I was beginning to get into big-time (i.e., science fiction), and a publication that wasn't afraid to challenge me and take me outside of my comfort zone. The only downside of this is that this issue was devoted to Galactica 1980, and I'd love to say that I was so precocious as a 12-year-old that I knew that the original Galactica (not to mention the 1980 rebirth) was silliness; but the truth is that even with a dozen years under my belt, I was totally swept away with the saga and the mythos of Battlestar Galactica. I did understand that Galactica 1980 was a low-budget and poorly constructed retread of the show, so give me that. But still, that color shot on the cover of the Galactica being attacked by a Cylon fighter -- well, I just had to have that magazine.

Starlog #34
68 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $2.25

Starlog #34 includes a neat free insert: a Star Wars cast photo, and -- on the other side of the binding -- a Fangoria Count Fangor bookmark. Otherwise, it's a Galactica- and Empire-heavy issue. Perfect food for a 12-year-old science-fiction fan in 1980. Also, an armload of new Starlog photo guidebooks are advertised: Spaceships (the expanded edition), Science Fiction Heroes, Special Effects Volume II, and Science Fiction Villains.

If you like Cylon raider photos, such as the one on the cover, you'll geek out over the contents page photo of raiders among the clouds; Kerry O'Quinn's From the Bridge is another Grab Bag Notes column, this time covering everything from digital recordings, to reader reactions to his previous columns, to why he's adding a comic strip to his Fangoria magazine (over the objections of Fangoria's editor, "Uncle Bob" Martin); reader letters in the Communications pages include reactions to O'Quinn's "Dreams" editorial, thoughts on Galactica 1980, playing the recent special effects record, and more; Log Entries is filled with short news items such as a report on Forrest J. Ackerman's science fiction museum, first news of Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars, Howard Cruse releases a new edition of his Barefootz Funnies, the death of Don Post Sr., and more.

Karen E. Willson interviews Robyn Douglass, who plays Jamie on Galactica 1980; Willson also interviews Robbie Rist, who might well be a wonderful person but who played the annoying Doctor Z on Galactica 1980; David Gerrold discusses writing, and he begins his column with the words that introduced me to Harlan Ellison ("Harlan Ellison once said that a fresh litchi nut is the third best thing in the world. I thought for a moment, then asked, "What's the second?" "Sex, of course." "Oh -- then, what's the first?" He blinked. "David, I'm surprised at you! It's writing!"); David Houston interviews Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner; Bjo Trimble's Fan Scene highlights the Fantasy Artists Network; Jonathan Eberhart's Interplanetary Excursions, Inc., visits the Martian moon of Phobos; the Quest page includes some Australian readers who make SF models; a two-page color photo spread revisits The Martian Chronicles; Karen E. Willson interviews Tom Baker, Britain's Doctor Who; Alan Brender reports from the first Doctor Who convention in North America; Gerry Anderson's Space Report has the first part of "The Mysterious Unknown Force"; Samuel J. Maronie interviews Felix Silla, who plays the uber-annoying Twiki on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century; David Houston writes the SFX section, looking at the Halloween production of Bob Burns; David Houston's Visions column looks at the work of William Cameron Menzies; and Howard Zimmerman's Lastword covers some of the many flaws in Galactica 1980.

"You know, when I got the character I was desperately out of work and glad to have the contract. Fortunately, I signed the contract before anybody else did. I remember the wonderful feeling I had when I signed this beautiful contract, which was going to put me into television history because of the formula. Even if I had been a disastrous failure I would have gone into history as the first failure, because no one has failed Dr. Who."

--Tom Baker, actor, interviewed in "A Visit with The Doctor (Who): Tom Baker"

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

SFX Does an Esquire with Its 3-D Cover

UK science-fiction media magazine SFX has slapped a 3-D cover on its current (May 2010, #194) issue. The Doctor Who (oh, they're British, who the hell else would they use?) image shows the doc standing in the foreground, holding out toward the reader a weapon/flashlight/instrument-of-some-kind (I don't know; I don't watch Who).

My first thought upon seeing the cover was that the magazine has pulled an Esquire -- i.e., going in for gimmickry with cover tricks in an attempt to get attention. My second thought was that the main effect of the 3-D imagery is to make the photo less clear and even to make some of the text difficult to read. And my third thought was the same as my first thought.

Still, it's an interesting thing to do, and as 3-D covers go, it's a good one. Best of all: It's nice to read in the editor's note that the magazine's circulation is high and rising. So much for print being dead, eh? Attention Americans: So much for science fiction media magazines being dead, eh?

(Note that this is one issue of the magazine that didn't do a separate run for subscribers without any blurbs on the cover. Apparently, it's one gimmick per cover.)