Before there were message boards and Tumblr, fans discussed the show via DIY zines—which helped keep the series alive and housed debates that have directly influenced the show.

 

As the longest-running science fiction series ever, whose generation-spanning viewer base has often been named one of the most intense and devoted fandoms eve.

 

The fanzines where Capaldi and others got their start may have seen their numbers decline over the years, but their DNA is all over the modern fandom in a way that distinguishes it from other sci-fi fanzine communities like that of Star Trek. 

 

Doctor Who fanzines not only helped keep the fandom alive during its hiatus, they've been a long-standing venue for fans to debate and police the limits of the Doctor Who universe—and these debates have had a direct and noticeable influence on the show itself.

 

The golden age of Doctor Who fanzines, when the number of zines peaked in the hundreds and their most famous writers were most active, lasted from the mid-80s and into the ‘90s. The explosion was enabled in part by new technology. 

 

In addition to the advent of desktop publishing that made producing quality zines at home easier, the rise of VCRs and commercial video releases by the BBC allowed fans to rewatch and catch-up on episodes, facilitating detailed, in-depth discussions about the show.

 

Those discussions were also enlivened, paradoxically, by the show’s struggle to survive. While Doctor Who's ratings were underwhelming in the years leading up to the show's 1989 cancellation, the fanzine community’s interest intensified and its publications flourished.

 

Once the BBC closed the book on Doctor Who, it also prompted more fans to take up fan fiction and articles that playfully tackled the “what-ifs” they might have refrained from if the show had continued.

These publications didn’t just thrive then, they also played a major role in getting the show back on the air. During the hiatus, some of the most prolific and well-known zine writers were hired to pen novelizations of the show, which pushed Doctor Who into new territory. 

 

Below is the index of the various Fanzines that I have to share.