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IRWIN ALLEN FAN PUBLICATIONS |
Updated: February 03, 2022
By Bruce Fedow:
While I was hard at work producing Lost in Space Forever, my own effort, several others were publishing
their tributes to Irwin Allen's other TV series and films. Land of the Giants Journal, created by
Doug Diamond, featured reprinted articles on the show as well as many rare photos. Doug realized that due
to a dearth of available Land of the Giants material the best way to fill up the pages was to also include
material on Voyage, Swiss Family Robinson and the like. The magazine lasted 4 issues.
Many years before he became an eminent scientist at the California Institute of Technology and a famous
author and lecturer on the subject of optical illusions Al Seckel created The Time Tunnel Fanzine, which
lasted 2 issues and included reprinted Time Tunnel articles and an incredible collection of rare photographs
taken on the Time Tunnel set. Al had one of a kind contact sheets and wasn't above cutting them up and
pasting them in the pages of his zine. In those days there was no such thing as "screen grabs" so the
photos you saw of the Complex were literally taken off the television screen in glorious back and white. Al
also created what was probably the first fan-built model of the Tunnel and the Complex.
Though not strictly a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea fanzine, Hedison Hosts was the fanzine Vieve Yarbrough
published in conjunction with her Hedison fanclub and included up-to-date information on the series' stars,
great photos, and excellent graphics, printed on yellow and green paper for an added touch.
Lee Sobel's fan produced magazine The Orion Warrior usually featured Star Trek but for one issue it was dedicated
to Lost in Space. Crammed with excellent photos and all-new articles it was well-produced. It's a shame more
issues were not released.
Perhaps the best-made fanzine of its time was Rendezvous With Yesterday. The title was misleading-while it featured
the Time Tunnel it also included the latest news on Allen's (then) future projects. Kevin Danzey produced two issues
of this superior effort.
Later years saw the introduction of better-produced, more professional magazines like Lost in Space Monthly, The
Galaxy Gift, LISFAN and The Alpha Centaurian. While impressive in their own right, they owe their very existence to
the pioneers like Bob Richards and Ron Sapp whose efforts more than three decades ago created this fanzine genre that
still continues.
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