Chapter 7 - Postlude: Back to Basics

Summary

Although the 1980s might be seen as the decade of three literary revolutions, there were, of course, other magazines striving to make a difference, but not seeking to be revolutionary. One might almost classify Analog among those but, as we have seen, Stanley Schmidt had deftly steered that magazine so that it kept its traditional values while still experimenting with new fictions that explored the same areas the more revolutionary magazines were generating—certainly the radical hard-sf renaissance, and a form of Analog/cyberpunk hybrid, if perhaps not slipstream.

Other publications, though, strove for a greater sense of normality, to publish more conventional science fiction. Sometimes this might have been at the risk of taking a backward step, such as with the shared-world publications, while other times it was simply publishing such material as was available. Yet curiously, even these back-to-basics magazines were revolutionary in their own way, either in how they provided a market for new writers unable to crack the major magazines, or in the way they tried to influence readers into taking a new look at the world about them.

Among these magazines were as many failures as there were successes, because as we have seen, unless a publisher had sufficient financial backing, adequate resources and a firm understanding of the market, the chances of survival were limited.

It is worth considering, therefore, the ones that did not make it, or barely made it at all, to see what lessons may be learned.

Stuck on the Launch Pad

There were several attempts to launch new magazines in the 1980s which floundered before any issue was published. For instance, Imago was planned as a fantasy magazine, to be published by Chelsea House as a companion to its new movie magazine Coming Attractions. It was to be a highly illustrated slick magazine in letter format, and to include comic strips and artist portfolios, as well as a new fantasy role-playing game (RPG), suggesting the magazine was inspired by the success of both Heavy Metal and the gaming magazines. The editor was Richard Monaco assisted by his wife Adele Leone. The first issue was planned for release in July 1983 (dated October), with work by Alan Dean Foster, Tanith Lee, Gene Wolfe, Piers Anthony and a centrefold by Tim Hildebrandt.