tion and resources. It is a way of framing both a per-
sonal commitment to writing as well as a desire to
break isolation and build communities.
As such, zines are as much about the communities
that arise out of their circulation as they are artefacts
of personal expression. People create zines to scream
out ‘I exist,’ they also do it to connect to others saying
the same thing. (Duncombe 1997a: 530)A special genre is the sci-fi fanzines, zines made by
fans for fans, often on a special genre or show. The
birth of this genre was a DIY approach for people
who wanted to discuss and build further on their fa-
vourite sci-fi tales and narratives. They made up own
stories or contexts, usually kept the style of their
genre, characters and intrigues intact, but filling in
gaps or expanding scenes. The amateur fiction sto-
ries produced in the first fanzines in the early 20th
century were usually comments and stories connect-
ed to the emerging sci-fi community. The writers
who sent stories or who artists made fan artworks
were often feeling dissatisfied with the handling of
the issues in the “prozines” – the professional maga-
zines. Many zines also began including “letters of
comment” sent to the editor. These were more trans-
parent than those of the pro-zines as they included
the address of the commentator, so readers could be
in direct contact to create new communities. Thus
fan culture has always had a community form, writ-
ing fictions for the own narrow audience and form-
ing amateur press associations, newsgroups and
mailing lists.
The TV stars, be they from Star Trek or Flash Gor-
don, became more complex figures in the fan media,
revealing manifold sides of personality, but never in
conflict with is seen in the official narratives. How-
ever, some stories mixed characters from different
episodes, often starting with a simple dispute “who is
best – superman or batman?” As they evolved these
remixes became subgenres themselves, making
crossovers and exploring the tensions between dif-
ferent fiction universes and superheroes. The stories
were parasiting on the original story but also enrich-
ing it by creatively exploring its various shades and
border zones. These fictions, which were before kept
within the fan culture, are now reaching wider audi-
ences through the Internet and some were first trans-
formed into comics and later blockbuster movies,
like Alien vs Predator (comic Warner et al 1990; mov-
ie Anderson 2004), which in turn triggered new fan
movies, such as Sandy Collora’s acclaimed Batman:
Dead End (2003).
An especially interesting part of fan culture is how
fans twist the stories and create diagonal connec-
tions between the lines of the existing works, reinter-
preting the scenes into other directions and actual-
izing other potentialities than the originally intended.
The fanzines started to divert into subgenres by de-
veloping or intensifying the friendships of two char-
acters, such as Kirk and Spock in Star Trek, into a
special genre itself. These stories focused entirely
around their Kirk’s and Spock’s friendship and
evolved into a genre called K&S. However, it coin-
cided with another line of interpretation which took
the notion of friendship even further into something
called “slash fiction”; the homoerotic adventures of
Kirk/Spock (as in S/M).
A fan from Australia wrote an early example of this
in 1975 where the first two-page story was a vague
sex scene between two persons, and first in the next
issue of the fan zine, as the scene evolved further, it
was apparent that it was Kirk and Spock making love
(Verba1996: 19). This sparked the big “K/S contro-
versy” in the late 70’s among the Trekkies, the Star
Trek fan community. Some fan groups meant this
was a logical consequence of a strong friendship,
others that it meant that their beloved characters had
been “raped” by slash writers. (Jenkins 1988: 276)
This controversy is still alive today, but the slash gen-
re has nevertheless grown over the years to now in-
clude many other popular culture characters such as
Crockett/Tubbs from Miami Vice, or Harry/Draco,
from Harry Potter.
The erotic Kirk/Spock subgenre has become a cult
classic among the slash writers. Especially the epi-
sode “Amok Time” from 1967, in which Spock gets
his “Pon Farr” or blood fever. In this critical state he
will need to mate with another person of his race,
Vulcan, or else he will die from the fever. Often ana-
lysed and referred to within the K/S genre the epi-
sode left many open clues that there existed a real
homoerotic relationship between Kirk and Spock. In
the episode, Spock, who usually is very logical and
emotionless, shows sudden mood shifts and irra-
tional behaviour. Kirk, the captain of the ship ques-
tions him about his state.Spock: “It has to do with... biology... Vulcan biol-
o g y.”