Words: Pete Vilmur
Anyone who’s followed my articles on StarWars.com knows that I’ve got a soft spot for Star Wars’ first fandom – that is, those early fans who pre-empted the official costumes, books, and other merchandise in the months following A New Hope’s May ’77 release and created their own homespun papier mache masks, fanzines, bumper stickers and buttons to share their enthusiasm for the newfound faraway galaxy.
Luke Skywalker costume from a ’70s Space-Con
The appeal of those often clumsy, awkward early days lead me to a small premiere screening at Michaan’s Theater in Alameda this weekend, a somewhat forgotten early century movie palace nestled along the edge of San Francisco Bay near Oakland, California. A new documentary was debuting on DVD celebrating the history of Space-Con, a series of Star Trek/science fiction conventions that got their start at a Bay Area high school in 1975 and made seven more successful runs through 1980, becoming a fondly-recalled facet of Bay Area fandom thereafter.