Shaqui Le Vesconte remembers TV Sci-Fi Monthly, an “oversize” publication which focused on various television programmes, carrying interviews and articles as well as its main feature, a large fold-out poster in each issue...

Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock was a logical cover boy for the first issue

It can be difficult to now conceive thosepre-Netflix streaming days, even pre-DVD or (showing some ancientosity here) pre-VHS times. When there was no dedicated periodical to get any news, let alone Ain’t It Cool spoiler websites. Damn it, the internet was still a pipedream. A twinkle in the eye of ARPANET, even as the first worldwide protocol suites were being developed. From this formless publishing void in the genre of screen media science fiction and fantasy came TV Sci-Fi Monthly.

There had been a precursor in New English Library’s (NEL) Science Fiction Monthly, which launched in February 1974. This tabloid size magazine, from its own opening editorial, wanted to ‘emphasis visual interpretation of science fiction’. As a publisher of many novels in the genre, NEL had received letters that ‘expressed two desires: (1) they wanted the top in science fiction reading and (2) they had requested copies of the artwork used on the covers’. At 25p for 32 pages, the magazine gave those readers what they wanted; short stories, excerpts from novels, and profiles of authors in the regular ‘Modern Masters of Science Fiction’ biographies. Interspersed with full-page and centrespread colour reproductions of the cover paintings, with the occasional artist interview, it was a lavish eye-catching title. Science Fiction Monthly was not adverse to other media, and author-turned-columnist John Brosnan often turned a critical eye to what was happening in the movies and on television. As there was little new going on in the UK aside from The Tomorrow People, and the ever present Doctor Who, US sci-fi TV shows got an overview on the magazine’s first anniversary. This was followed some issues later by one for British television. Towards the end of 1975, the new Gerry Anderson epic Space:1999 got a real lambasting as the magazine started its third volume. That same month, TV Sci-Fi Monthly appeared.

Over a year before Tharg from Betelguese established the comic 2000AD, the brief editorial by the bearded alien known as ‘The Wanderer’ told readers, “What you have in your hands is a momentous new addition to the Galactic Data Banks - the first magazine to deal entirely with screen sci-fi! Each month, TV SCI-FI will be bringing you the facts behind your favourite science fiction… Star Trek, Space:1999, Six Million Dollar Man, Doctor Who… the lot!”

On a ‘galactic’ scale, this may not have been entirely accurate. With precious few specialist SF shops in the UK then and

international distribution somewhat sporadic, American publications like Famous Monsters of Filmland, Cinefantastique and The Monster Times may have passed by English fans unnoticed. Close to two years before Starburst launched on the popularity of Star Wars, TV Sci-Fi Monthly was the first British mainstream magazine to celebrate the ‘Superheroes of Television Science Fiction’. It was there as filming commenced at Elstree in the summer of 1976, reporting on George Lucas’s epic space fantasy a year prior to its USA release.

DAZZLINGLY IRREVERENT

The late Mick Farren, who passed away in 2013 while performing on-stage, was there at the start. Interviewed in 2010, he recollected, “TV Sci-Fi Monthly was the result of veterans of the original UK underground press -primarily IT (International Times), OZ, Frendz, and the comic Nasty Tales -finding ways to survive until punk made life interesting again (and) were not totally at odds with our counterculture beliefs after the initial underground media had collapsed. Partly as a result of draining prosecutions and a diversifying market. Thus the team was already in place, give or take a few people.”