IN THE KNOW
DID YOU KNOW?
Jefferson Borough
was home of
sci-fi magazine
Questar
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O
ut of a basement in Jefferson Borough in the spring
of 1978, a 23-year-old young man decided the time
was right to launch a magazine dedicated to science
fiction. And why not? Just a year prior, a little movie called Star
Wars was released and made some waves in the genre, along
with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Empire of the Ants.
Superman was weeks away from the silver screen, and the ‘70s
sci-fi renaissance was just warming up.
So, William G. Wilson, Jr., who was working during the
day in a print shop, got to work creating Questar, a 40-page,
glossy magazine covering all things sci-fi, including comics
and fictional works. The magazine spanned 13 issues in all, and
with Wilson collaborating with Robert Michelucci, it evolved
from just talking about popular movies and comics to actually
conducting interviews and reporting on movies, as well as
including exclusive fictional content for readers. The cover
price for the magazine was $2 per issue ($2.50 for mailed
copies), and the magazine remained mainly limited in nature
until 1980, when it went national. Up until then, Questar was
available in a handful of cities and throughout California.
On the up and up, Questar recruited esteemed science
fiction writer Horace Leonard “H.L.” Gold to edit its fiction.
A veteran writer, who wrote for DC Comics, Gold was known
best for his science fiction magazine, Galaxy Science Fiction,
which launched 28 years earlier, in 1950.
Despite Gold’s renown, and the magazine’s shifting
focus toward increasing quality in its offerings for readers,
including “vintage fiction” (reprints by greats such as Richard
Matheson), Questar’s last issue published in October of 1981.
The science fiction renaissance continued with the release of
classics like Blade Runner, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Tron
the following year. ■