Frontiers. [Significant Collection of 67 Early Issues].

North Hollywood; West Hollywood: Frontiers Publishing Corporation, 1982-2004. 15 x 11-1/2 inches. Various paginations. Tabloid-format magazine, most issues printed on newsprint with color covers, some issues stapled with glossy covers. Light wear and toning. Very Good or better overall.

This collection includes the following biweekly issues: Volume 1 (May 6, 1982 – May 11, 1983), issues 1 through 1-26, missing issues 5, 9 and 16. The magazine moved to a weekly format starting with Volume 2 from May 25, 1983 – May 9, 1984, and includes issues 2 through 41, missing issues 12, 18-24, 26, 31, 33 and 35.; Volume 3, issue 28, November 21-28, 1984, and issue 31, December 12-19, 1984, an unnumbered issue dated February 13-20, 1985, issue 49, April 17-24, 1985, issue 51, May 1-8, 1985; Volume 4, issue 1, May 15-22, 1985, issue 3, May 29-June 5 and issue 12, July 31-August 7, 1985; Volume 8, issue 13, October 20, 1989; Volume 9, issue 19, January 18, 1991, issue 23, March 15, 1992; Volume 10, issue 9, August 30, 1991, issue 26, April 24, 1992; Volume 11, issue 1, May 8, 1992; Volume 19, issue 1, May 4, 2000; Volume 23, and issue 23, October 13-26, 2004.

A significant collection of 67 issues of what was Southern California's oldest and largest LGBTQ+ magazine. Founded in 1982 by Robert F. Craig, Greg Carmack, and Jerry Hyde, and later wholly owned by Craig, a longtime gay activist, the magazine rapidly expanded from its initial 16-page length into a 168-page juggernaut, with a circulation of nearly 90,000 in Southern California at its heyday in the early 2000s. In 2016, after suffering for several years through new, controversial ownership that attempted to expand the readership to heterosexual men and filing for bankruptcy in 2013, Frontiers officially folded, ending a remarkable period of gay activism and advocacy in publishing.

The history of the magazine was not without controversy, most notably with regards to the AIDS crisis. In its March 30 - April 13, 1983 issue (Vol. 1, No. 24), included in this collection, Frontiers' front page article was a reprinted essay by playwright and activist Larry Kramer. Titled "A.I.D.S.: 1,112 and counting...", it starkly lays out the case for immediate and urgent action: "Our continued existence as gay men upon the face of this earth is at stake. Unless we fight for our lives we shall die. In all the history of homosexuality we have never been so close to death and extinction before. Many of us are dying or dead already." The article and subsequent ones on the AIDS crisis outraged many of the magazine's readers and supporters, including bar and bathhouse owners who vowed to boycott it. “'Bob risked losing advertising to educate the community about something we all know about now,' said associate publisher David Gardner. 'He was always committed to Frontiers being, first and foremost, an advocacy publication'” (Los Angeles Times, May 3, 2000, "Robert F. Craig; Published Gay Magazine").

Frontiers remained both a news and an entertainment magazine, reporting on subjects as varied as gay sports, including the Gay Games; fitness; gay celebrities and politicians; hustling; and much, much more. Additionally, each issue includes numerous advertisements from gay and gay-supporting businesses, classified ads, etc.

OCLC locates a single issue at Ohio State University; we also find a significant but broken run (lacking many of these early issues) in the finding aid for the Inventory of the LGBTQ Publications Collection at CSU Dominguez Hills, and note that the One Archives hold Craig's papers as well as those of an editor at Frontiers.