Scribbling Women: The History of Our Art

Scribbling Women: The History of Our Art is an article by Liz Woledge in Legacy #1.
It is part of a series:
* Scribbling Women: The History of Our Art
* Scribbling Women: Artists Talk Back
* Scribbling Women: Editors Talk Back
This article examines zine art, focusing on style, the productivity of selected artists, and the subject of these illustrations. She also goes into great detail regarding statistics and subjects of K/S art as it appeared between 1976 and 1998.
==Excerpt==
==Identifies the First K/S Art Published==
The first K/S art published was by Diane Marchant for her story A Fragment Out of Time. It was a small, subtle non-explicit piece that did not specify who was being portrayed; the fact that it was Kirk and Spock was based on context (neither character was referred to by name in the story), this inference was made even vaguer.
==Discusses the First Explicit K/S Art==
==The Stats==
The author and her cohorts analyzed many years of K/S art and reported statistics regarding how explicit the subjects were, were Spock and Kirk displayed alone or together... 
The author explains that she defines X-rated as "sexually explicit," and NC-17 as "erotic." 
===1976-1981===
The Early Years: 562 pictures were analyzed: 74 were X-rated, 81 were NC-17 rated, 101 were PG rated, 227 were G rated
"By far the most popular medium was pen and ink accounting for 403 of the images—with just 100 pictures being drawn in pencil. This probably reflects the realities of the reproduction of zines, where the greyscale printing, needed to reproduce the tones of pencil work, was more expensive, or even impossible, for some editors. The most prolific artists were Gayle F. with 75 drawings and Merle D. with 55 (that’s a LOT!) But of course you don’t have to be prolific to be well known and Leslie Fish and Pat S. were both scribbling busily during these years."
===1981-1985===
Gaining Strength: 455 pictures were analyzed: 
93 were X-rated, 62 were NC-17 rated, 32 were PG rated, 132 were G rated, 99 were portraits, 31 were copies of Trek scenes.
"203 were pen and ink 169 were pencils The rest were other media. So it does seem that as reproduction technology improved, pencil work was being published more and more. A lot of artists preferred to work in pencil and so perhaps editors were bowing to artistic pressure. Prolific artists included Val J. and Barbara G., although no one was published quite as often as Gayle F. was in the first five years of fandom. Gayle herself was only published 23 times in this next period, perhaps her hands were still sore from drawing over 70 pictures in the previous few years! This time also saw the emergence of several other well known artists, including Caren Parnes, Suzan Lovett and The Southern Cross."
===1985 -1998 ===
Established Fandom: 1044 pictures were analyzed
166 were X-rated, 173 were NC-17 rated, 65 were PG rated, 163 were G rated, 426 were portraits, 42 were copies of a Trek scene
"It looks as if portraits came into their own during these years, possibly because some very talented artists of this period specialized in them. Interestingly, there is still a dip in PG rated pictures—we seem to like our K/S erotic or clean and not half-half. I wonder why that is? Perhaps we’re just not the sort to do things by halves? There are proportionally more X-rated pictures in these years than previous ones, but not by a huge margin. I don’t think we’ve got ruder—but we are perhaps less worried about postmen and customs officials. 
In terms of medium, there were 416 pen and ink drawings and 407 pencil drawings. I’m surprised that pen and inks are still so popular as several artists say they don’t care for the medium and greyscale printing was well established by 1985.
The most prolific artist was Chris S., with an amazing 124 pictures published (many of them stunning portraits), Virginia S. published 77 pictures, Kay W. 75, Jackie Z. 71, Deeb 55, and Gayle F. 41! Shelley Butler also enters the scene during these years. And the rest, as they say, is history....
When I asked people who their favourite K/S artist of all time was, Chris S., The Southern Cross, and Shelley Butler all tied for first place!"
==Reactions and Reviews==
==References==
Category:Fanart Meta
Category:Zine Meta
Category:Star Trek TOS Meta
Category:Star Trek TOS K/S Meta
Category:Star Trek TOS K/S Art
Category:Star Trek TOS Fan Interviews
Category:Fan Artist Interviews
Category:2007 Fan Interviews
Category:2007 Meta
Category:Meta in Print