Another blast from the magazine racks of the past: the first issue of SF collectables magazine AREA 51.
This first edition appeared in October 1997.
I was a regular buyer of this one and have a good run of issues in storage. However, I'm not sure how long it lasted (several years I would think) nor do I remember it ever vanishing. I guess it just faded away (or I stopped buying it... which seems unlikely).
The timing of the launch coincided with the late nineties nostalgia boom in Star Age SF, spawned in large part by the return of the STAR WARS saga to the big screen.
The title, of course, references the top secret US military installation which (supposedly) houses captured alien tachnology and/ or other state-of-the-art hardware.
