How Cait's Retail Therapy Is Unlike Other Girls'...

[caitri]

... Well for one thing, it involves a heckuva lot more slash.



Okay so I've had a couple of shittastic weeks, so I treated myself to some zines. Since so many people were fascinated by my collection, I thought I'd share some stuff.

First off, here are my two favorite stores:

AgentWithStyle specializes in reprints from lots of different fandoms, but TOS Star Trek is particularly noteworthy. They also have zines from a bunch of the newer fandoms, like Buffy, Harry Potter, and Firefly.

Jim & Melody's is a sort of clearing house for a bunch of fans and their stuff. Their listings change up periodically depending on what they have, and they have an awesome selection of stuff from Star Trek, Darkover, and more. The people who run the place are nice and knowledgable, too.

Okay, so here's what I got in the mail today:



A couple of LOTR zines, slash and gen. I've got back into LOTR fandom because of the fic o' doom. However, I'm all kinds of annoyed as I have Eomer NEEDS and fic about him is very short on the ground. **grump**



Here's some Trek stuff. Again a mix of gen and slash, though I have to note, with TOS stuff slash almost always tends to be better. IDEK.



Now here's a little beauty: a 1976 Guide to Star Trek Fan Clubs and Zines. What I find particularly interesting is we have this very gen publication, but the fanzine listing in the back is an alphabetical listing of zines. Now they don't classify slash on its own, which isn't unusual historically, but they do list the adult zines alongside everything else with no content warnings, which I find fascinating.

I wrote an abstract to do a paper looking at Trek fandom historically, so these are my research materials. *G* But man I'm glad I have something to look forward to with these babies.

Comments

[nikki4noo.livejournal.com]

Very interesting, I think that historically people were less worried about 'offending' others than we are today.

Do you know about the new online journal to do with fanworks? I have a link to it on my laptop I can send to you later if you are interested.

[caitri.livejournal.com]

Well what I find really interesting is that a lot of the older stories tend to focus on getting boys together in fairly odd artificial ways--I mean, the zine "Fever" was devoted to K/S hooking up because Spock goes into Pon Farr and Jim has to save his life. Whereas reboot stories it's assumed that everyone is bisexual (Actually that's the title of my paper, "Everybody's Bi in the Future") which I just love. There's no angst about same sex love or anything.

As for the journal, do you mean Transformative Works and Cultures? I have an article with them coming out in March. :D

[nikki4noo.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's the journal. Some really interesting articles in there.

I did enjoy the one discussing women's roles in Trek and making the case that Spock is actually a woman, Number One in reality. That if you watch the pilot episode, his characterisation is so far removed from what we now know as Spock and yet the character that is closet to it in that episode is Number One.

I will look forward to reading yours! What intrigues me about looking at TOS and the fanworks created at that time and even now, people don't understand a dynamic of a threesome. That for TOS it really is about the three boys and that is what Gene created, but people don't seem to be able to wrap the idea.

[caitri.livejournal.com]

Oh I missed that article, or I've forgotten about it. I'll have to go looking for it.
As for the threesome, I think people have a problem with it because we have such a weird outlook: you have the "one great figure" stories and then the "dynamic duo" trope and the idea of a threesome or even a real ensemble seems almost too much, y'know?

My paper in TW&C is gonna be a short piece on Marion Zimmer Bradley, who's my other research obsession. She was such a fascinating person and wrote such interesting, even radical books for her time. I love her dearly.

[nikki4noo.livejournal.com]

The article was mainly about women's roles in Trek and about the creation of fan video's as a medium. A little way into it there was the discussion about Spock as a 'pseudo woman'. It was in one of the early editions.

I have only read a couple of her books but did enjoy them very much. You might inspire me to read some more of them. ;)

[caitri.livejournal.com]

Hee, Scifi Librarian to the rescue!!!!! ;)

Okay, Thendara House may be one of my fav scifi novels EVER. Rediscovery is one of my fav "first contact" stories too. And if you've never read Mists of Avalon, you have to fix that!!! :D

[nikki4noo.livejournal.com]

I've read Mists of Avalon but not the others. Will keep an eye out for them.

[caitri.livejournal.com]

Thendara House has been reprinted in an omnibus edition titled The Saga of the Renunciates, since it is sort of the middle volume of a trilogy. The nice thing about her books though is they were all written so they could be standalones. Rediscovery has been reprinted as a paperback--I think I've seen it a couple of places. Bradley's stuff isn't hugely appreciated so when you see her books in stores they tend to be a random assortment.

[dramapunk.livejournal.com]

ohhhhh fun. When I am said it's normally dvds and music. you win.

[caitri.livejournal.com]

I'm a nerd, it's a thing. :D

[dramapunk.livejournal.com]

lololol I am nerd too. I am just to poor for the awesomeness of this post. heh. That and school is keeping me from fun fun fun reading.

[caitri.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Jim & Melody's stuff averages $1-$8 for a zine. They don't do orders for less than $10, but they are by far the cheapest source for stuff I have found. Most zines tend to average around $30 per zine.

[gadgetorious.livejournal.com]

ZIIIIIINE! *_*

I want to get my hands on your K/S collection one of these days. :)

[caitri.livejournal.com]

You will be immensely entertained, I have no doubt.

[amine-eyes.livejournal.com]

Ah the best way to solve sadness, fanfiction and books :D

I can't actually buy any more books atm, the pathetic little sheves I was given in my uni room won't fit anymore on :( However, I will not let that deter me! xD

Glad you're feeling better, and getting to write a paper on Trek fandom historically? *ENVIOUS* xD :D