950 items.

Star was a pioneering magazine from the Spanish underground created in Barcelona in 1974 by Juan José Fernández and Francisco Javier Ballester (Montesol). Until 1980, 57 issues of the magazine were published (with a one-year interruption subsequent to issue no. 15 by orders of the government) under two different directors: Fernández himself and, later on, Karmele Marchante.

Initially, the magazine only contained comic strips, but the balance was to be addressed later with the addition of text and graphics. Star helped to introduce the Spanish public to the work of acclaimed American artists (Crumb, Shelton and Kurtzman, for example), as well as Spanish artists (Nazario, Ceesepe, Cifré, Montesol, Rubiales, Max and Gallardo). For the first 15 issues the magazine was biweekly, although it later became monthly.

The magazine’s content was bold and daring, acting as a showcase and mouthpiece for marginality in all its creative movements and expressions: music, comics, literature, painting, sexual freedom, drugs and youth movements, among others, which got them into trouble with the authorities (fines, abduction, threats and closures) during the complex transition to democracy in Spain. Less than 3,000 copies of the first few issues of the magazines were sold, but at its peak it sold around 25,000 copies.

The first issue of Star (July, 1974) includes a prologue written by both Montesol and Juan José Fernández Ribera, in which they explained their intentions: to be marginal press, to give Spanish artists opportunities, to discover international artists, and to go against the grain ‘as much as they allow us to, which won’t be a great deal’. In the final issues of the magazine (no. 57, April 1980), a publishing house justifies its demise by reflecting on how the new decade required a new type of publication in keeping with the new times.

Archivo Lafuente holds over 950 items related to the magazine Star, including the complete collection of the magazine, cards, catalogues, books, invitations, posters, bulletins, photographs, audiovisual material, leaflets, original work and diverse documentation relating to the fines and inquiries to which the publication was subjected.