1970s Star Trek Annuals

[JPG and Spock]

I bought one of the 1970s ST annuals on eBay and enjoyed the comics. I was hoping there would be some articles like they did for the Planet of the Apes annuals of the same era. Do any of the other years have something similar or are they all just comics in a hardback?

 

[F. King Daniel]

I bought one of the 1970s ST annuals on eBay and enjoyed the comics. I was hoping there would be some articles like they did for the Planet of the Apes annuals of the same era. Do any of the other years have something similar or are they all just comics in a hardback?

They're all comics in hardback with a few added board games and kiddie-aimed puzzles and bits and pieces. No articles and nothing behind the scenes at all.

 

[Therin of Andor]

They're all comics in hardback with a few added board games and kiddie-aimed puzzles and bits and pieces. No articles and nothing behind the scenes at all.

Except, IIRC, the UK annual that included the Marvel adaptation of "The Motion Picture". I think it included some of the text pieces that were originally in the "Marvel Super Special"?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Except, IIRC, the UK annual that included the Marvel adaptation of "The Motion Picture". I think it included some of the text pieces that were originally in the "Marvel Super Special"?

Ah, I was thinking only of the 70's Gold Key annuals. I don't have the TMP one, but I do have a Next Gen one from the early 90's that reprints some DC content, and it DOES include background info on the making of the show.

 

[Desert Kris]

I don't suppose any of them have text short stories, similar to the ones found in the Doctor Who annuals? I tried doing research on the Star Trek ones, and found some information about comic stories printed in them, but it seemed like they didn't bother to do any text based stories, so I held off from making a serious effort to purchase any of them.

 

[Daddy Todd]

There were no text stories in the Star Trek annuals, but there was a short prose piece in the TV21 1971 Annual, which also includes a couple short Star Trek comic features.

One really nice plus to the Annuals is that they feature the best reproduction of the original artwork anywhere, with the possible exception of IDW's unfinished "Gold Key Archives" series, which contain "remastered" and recolored art.

Rich Handley maintains a frequently-updated PDF checklist/reference to Star Trek comics here: hassleinbooks.com/pdfs/TrekComics.pdf
It is amazingly complete.

 

[Therin of Andor]

it seemed like they didn't bother to do any text based stories, so I held off from making a serious effort to purchase any of them.

Not that they "didn't bother", but the exclusive rights for text-based stories would have required different negotiations with a different company. When Gold Key had the comics rights, Bantam, Ballantine and then Pocket held exclusive rights to text-based fiction. Later, text-based rights for short stories were separately negotiated by a revived "Amazing Stories" magazine (alternating with "Babylon 5" stories), then a computer game support manual (can't recall which one) and then Titan's "Star Trek" Magazine.

 

[Daddy Todd]

alternating with BSG stories.

Weren’t they B5 stories, not BSG stories?

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Weren’t they B5 stories, not BSG stories?

Yes they were B5 stories, as the revived AMAZING STORIES was published a few years before the new BSG series.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Weren’t they B5 stories, not BSG stories?

Yep. Sorry about that. Brain fritz.

 

[publiusr]

Rich Handley maintains a frequently-updated PDF checklist/reference to Star Trek comics here: hassleinbooks.com/pdfs/TrekComics.pdf
It is amazingly complete.

A great resource.