Goodbye, Starlog – Another Staple of My Youth Falls to the Wayside

When I was a kid, Starlog was my connection to the world of geek media. The internet as we know it was still many years away, so there were no pirated videos being sent all over the world, and no leaked rumors flying all over the world in ten minutes. Yes, we had to get our geek news the old-fashioned way: monthly magazines.

Now comes the news that Starlog is ending its magazine publication, becoming online-only. I feel somewhat responsible, since I haven’t bought a copy of it since I was in high school, and that was longer ago than I care to remember. I’ve picked up copies in bookstores now and then and leafed through them, remembering how I used to devour them the moment they arrived in the mailbox. But then I’ve put the copies back on the rack, because I’d already seen pretty much everything they had to show me.

It’s the way of all things, I realize: adapt or perish. I shouldn’t feel bad about a company having problems—I don’t know any of the people involved, and wouldn’t even recognize their names. Yet I feel almost the way I did when, say, DeForest Kelley and James Doohan passed away: I didn’t know them personally, but they were a part of my youth, and they’re gone. Obviously it’s sadder when a person dies than when a magazine stops being published, but it’s jarring just the same.

So I’ll be spending some of my free time today remembering the large stack of back issues that sat on the shelf next to my bed until my mom made me clean it up, and the way the articles and photos about upcoming movies would captivate me. Goodbye, Starlog.

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