Not Without You Anthology Lore
"Curious because I haven't had the pleasure of coming across any Stucky zines, tho I'm sure they existed and I just missed them. Would you mind sharing the story behind this anthology?" - @cubedcoffeecake
I'm happy to talk about it and tell you what I know/remember from all those years ago! (cue the fandom elder metamorphosis)
I was lucky - I joined the Stucky fandom around 2016, before Civil War came out, which I kind of consider a bit of the Golden Age for the Stucky fandom. (It honestly might have been 2015 that I started moving away from the Hobbit fandom and into the Stucky fandom, but I digress.) Back then, most of the fics were of Bucky coming in out of the cold and getting better with help from Steve, Sam, and Nat, while Clint was still hiding in the vents, and Thor was eating Pop-Tarts for every meal. It was glorious.
The fandom was HUGE; we had so many amazing creators of both fic and fanart, and honestly, I can think of three or four Stucky zines that were published during that time beyond the Not Without You Anthology. @inediblesushi published two that I got my hands on, and there were a few more beyond that. @dorkbait had some Inktober series that were focused on Bucky published as well, which are some of my prized fandom possessions. There was so much cake to choose from, you couldn't see the end of the buffet table!
The folks who developed the Not Without You Anthology decided to reach out to various creators and see if they would be interested in contributing to the anthology, and when they got enough creators lined up, they did a Kickstarter campaign. If I remember correctly, it was fully funded very, very quickly, and all of the stretch goals were blown through so fast they had to keep coming up with new ones!
Everyone was super excited for this anthology, and I know there were international backers as well, which was super cool! If I remember correctly, there were something like 200 (edit: bring that number to an actual, sane number of 47 artists and 15 writers lol) contributors for the anthology, counting the writers and the artists. Some of the artists did some of the stretch goals, so you only got a piece of their work at certain backer tiers. I do remember there being a little bit of fandom drama that certain creators weren't included in the anthology, but I was always just impressed that there were as many creators included as possible. The book does weigh 4 lbs 3oz after all, so I don't know how much bigger they could have realistically made it!
The sad thing about the Not Without You Anthology is that the folks who were doing it dropped out of the fandom not long after the books had been shipped. I know that the audiobook version of the anthology that had been the final stretch goal was never released. I wonder about it every now and then, what exactly happened, because I never even heard gossip about it around the fandom.
The fandom has grown and changed since 2017, and I do love my copy of the anthology because some of the creators who were in the Stucky fandom have moved on, and so their works are no longer available to purchase anymore, or they have removed their work from AO3 or their blogs have become inactive. I continue to love the Stucky fandom, and don't see that changing anytime soon, but I have to admit that there is a part of me that misses the fandom before the clusterfuck that was Infinity War and Endgame that has in my opinion, changed the Stucky fandom indeliably.
