Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Starlog is Back – On Your Back, As a T-Shirt

From small beginnings ...

Fangoria magazine, the sole survivor of a small but prolific magazine publishing house, has teamed up with Fright Rags to sell t-shirts emblazoned with the logos of Fangoria, Gorezone, and Starlog.

Starlog, as every reader of this blog knows, is the dearly departed science fiction magazine that died a sad death two years ago. It continued as an online-only product for less than a year before that, too, was shuttered, and Starlog.com is no more. Much has been written about Starlog's print and online existence – and much of it by me – but there's as yet no indication that the magazine will return to print soon or ever. So this t-shirt might be no more than an exercise in keeping legal control of a logo and name. But one never knows; Gorezone was a short-lived horror film sister magazine to Fango, and it is being resurrected in July as a special best-of one-shot, with the tantalizing possibility of a full-scale rebirth, depending on customer response, no doubt. So readers can hope that Starlog has a future life, too, and that it will be done well.

Either way, I'm still happy to see Starlog's appearance on clothing – and yes, I'm glad they used the classic logo for the magazine, the logo that was used almost until the very end of the publication's run, when it was replaced by a less dramatic, less graceful version. They made the correct choice for the shirt.

You'll also notice below that the Fango shirt uses the old logo for that magazine. This version was actually the second version of Fangoria's logo, appearing from the second issue until it was changed a few years later to the version that lasted a couple decades. The magazine has been switching back and forth with this classic logo and the current logo on its covers lately, so it's an open question which logo will be the long-term winner.

The shirts are only $19.95 each. And you know I'll be ordering the Starlog shirt. Order yours, if you're interested.

5 comments:

Ed said...

Awesome. I'm a longtime fan of both Starlog and Fangoria. I just came across this blog (specifically your Starlog project) and am thrilled to find someone else who loves the older fanzines of the 80's. Very cool idea.

jzipperer said...

Thanks, Ed!

Ed said...

You're welcome, John. I'm going to be starting a series on Fangoria for my own blog pretty soon.

jzipperer said...

Looking forward to it.

Ed said...

Thanks. I posted an intro article earlier and will put the first issue review up shortly.