New Star Trek Collectibles Magazine now shipping

[startrekfiero]

Now shipping to your favorite book and comic stores is the "Unofficial Guide to Star Trek Collectibles" magazine. This publication is packed with many Star Trek memorabilia related goodness including:

• An exclusive interview with Destiny Trilogy author David Mack which includes book reviews of all three Destiny books!​
• An article about EMCE toys written by Paul "Dr.Mego" Clarke​
• A history of Mego and the Star Trek License by Brian "Palitoy" Heiler of the Mego Museum
  ​
• An article about the rare Mission to Gamma IV play set​
• An analysis of Mego's many reuses of the Star Trek Transporter​
• A look at the Mega rare Mego Intergalactic Planetarium by John Michals
  ​
• Article featuring the latest information and incredible screen shots on the new Star Trek Online game due out in 2009​
• News and images of the very latest Star Trek toys and collectibles including Trek postage Stamps and Trek PEZ!​
• Feature article on Diamond Select Toys!​
• Feature article on Sideshow Collectibles!​
• Hallmark interview including news on the latest Trek ornaments!
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• Feature article on Master Replicas with the latest on their Mark IX Science Tricorder and the Starfleet Assault Phaser!​
• Interview with Playmates Toys including the very latest news on the new movie collectibles!

And a whole lot more, so if you're in the mood to read something "startrekish" then beam down to your
local book or comic retailer on Nov 17th!
http://www.megomuseum.com/dump/trekmagcover.jpg
​

 

[startrekfiero]

For those of you who may want to order the magazine directly from the publisher they now have it available for sale on their web site:
http://www.fwmagazines.com/product/1492/47

 

[Steve Roby]

Cool, thanks. Just ordered it.

 

[startrekfiero]

Would love to hear some feedback on what any of you think of this magazine once you get a copy and if you would like to see more issues produced

 

[Dayton Ward]

So, this is a one-time deal? For some reason I thought it was to be a regular thing (bi-monthly or maybe quarterly?), but I could be confusing it with something else.

 

[startrekfiero]

Right now it is whats called a one off. And what is a one off you may be asking? This is what publishers and the magazine industry call a test printing where they want to test the waters with a new never before done publication like this. They create one issue first to see how well it is received by the target audience before making any decisions on producing any more. Obviously if this magazine does well enough, the publisher will green light and allow a second issue and then if that also does well we would probably then be looking at going into some kind of semi regular printing schedule. I would like to see having possibly 4 issues a year worst case and bi-monthly best case. But again, first things are first. First we have to see how the Trek fans and collectors show their approval and support by hopefully buying up this "first" issue,
I can tell you that I am already in pre-production for the next issue in the anticipation of getting the word for going forward with at least another one.
Of course as most of us collectors know, magazines like this could quickly become a sought after collectible all on it's own too, which I find as both the creator/editor of this magazine as well as a big Trek fan and collector to be a pretty cool thought.

 

[007]

Just stumbled upon the magazine at the local comic book store yesterday and have already read it cover to cover.

I very much enjoyed this magazine (typos and formatting errors aside) and would very much like to see this magazine on the shelf on a bi-monthly basis.

As for comments...
A couple of the questions asked in all of the interviews were the exact same and this seemed (to me at least) rather tiring, being in the same issue and all.

I enjoyed seeing/reading about the rare collectibles that I'll never own and seeing other people's collections.

Here's a trifling thing... if the article is continued on the next page, you don't need to print that at the bottom of the preceding page.

Good first issue and I'll buy all that are put out.

Thanks.

 

[startrekfiero]

007,
I am glad that you enjoyed the magazine and would like to see more
To respond to a couple of your comments:
The questions were meant to be similar to each interview as we thought it would be great to see how each person would respond to the same or similar questions. Plus, since the topics are pretty much the same so too would be the questions

In any possible future issues however I am going to try and mix it up a bit more with the questions.

The page numbering, formatting, text editing and lay out are all done by the publisher. I would like to point out that they had some last minute hurdles they had to get over right before going to print which certainly didn't help with some of my incoming last minute content and latest collectibles news they were able to squeak in the issue in time.
I did get to see and proof many of the pages but on a few of them I either missed the mistakes or on some added content I never saw them at all due to the editing process, getting final approval fromCBS and trying to go to print in time. There were even a few image placement issues, but putting those little boo's boo's aside overall the magazine still came out looking spectacular and Krause and company certainly did a heck of a job taking all of the content I accumulated and created such a cool Trek collectibles magazine.

Again, please remember that this is a first and so we are learning from this first one which is why I appreciate any feedback.

Thanks

Steve

 

[Steve Roby]

Just got my copy. There are several things I like about it, some I'm not so keen on. First thoughts:

The good stuff:

• The magazine has a nice, clean, easy to follow layout, with actual black text on white pages. Designers of other magazines should keep in mind that this is common not because of lack of originality, but because it's easy to read. (Star Trek Magazine, I'm looking at you.)
• It's good to see some more detailed information on a variety of collectibles than the book had room for.
• I also like the inclusion of Star Trek books, complete with a David Mack interview.

Not so good:

• The interviews often feel like the same list of questions, with just slight changes, was emailed to several recipients.
• The interviews look like unedited back-and-forth email exchanges. Obviously you don't want to rephrase the answers you get, but you can do something other than having the same question/answer/question/answer format each time. And if the interviewee doesn't have anything to say, it's okay to leave that Q&A out. (Three or four interviews end with, "Is your company doing anything tied into the new movie?" followed by an extended PRspeak remix of "No."
• Though it's good to see some non-TOS material, the "TOS is best!" bias that made the book just a sampling of Trek memorabilia (leaving out the other series for possible future volumes) is not just present but downright intrusive here, as several licensees are asked leading questions about TOS vs other series.

If there are going to be future books and magazines, they may have to move beyond the focus on stuff that Steve Kelley personally finds interesting, from the type of collectibles covered to a greater appreciation for post-TOS Star Trek. A more inclusive approach is necessary. (IMHO, of course.)

 

[PaulSimpson]

The magazine has a nice, clean, easy to follow layout, with actual black text on white pages. Designers of other magazines should keep in mind that this is common not because of lack of originality, but because it's easy to read. (Star Trek Magazine, I'm looking at you.)

Hopefully the revamp of STM to coincide with the new movie will be more to your taste - we're increasing the white space considerably!

Paul

 

[Steve Roby]

Hopefully the revamp of STM to coincide with the new movie will be more to your taste - we're increasing the white space considerably!

Cool. (Hey, if the movie can increase the white space on the bridge, why not in the magazine, too?)

I just hope the actual content of the magazine doesn't change much.

 

[PaulSimpson]

Hopefully the revamp of STM to coincide with the new movie will be more to your taste - we're increasing the white space considerably!

Cool. (Hey, if the movie can increase the white space on the bridge, why not in the magazine, too?)

I just hope the actual content of the magazine doesn't change much.

You've hit the exact logic of the redesign... The current mag reflects the LCARS look that has characterised Trek for a very long time. When it was revamped for the US launch with issue 1 (which, remember was issue 128 for the UK audience), that was very much the current look, as reflected by all the post-TOS shows and movies. Now that we're into a new look, as seen in the trailer and the 20 minutes of footage, we can rethink.

We may mix and match the looks dependent on whether we're discussing movie or other material, but that's a design decision!

The content will only change inasmuch as immediately before, on release of, and immediately after the movie, there'll be far more movie content than stuff on the earlier shows - but that is always going to be the case whenever anything new canonical arrives. We gave more space to Destiny than usual on the books because of its importance to the 24th Century timeline and I'm hopeful that we can work together with Marco and Margaret on future key events in the literary universe. We're also going to have features on key IDW releases as well...

Paul

 

[DimesDan]

The magazine has a nice, clean, easy to follow layout, with actual black text on white pages. Designers of other magazines should keep in mind that this is common not because of lack of originality, but because it's easy to read. (Star Trek Magazine, I'm looking at you.)

Hopefully the revamp of STM to coincide with the new movie will be more to your taste - we're increasing the white space considerably!

Paul

This is going back a few years around the time of DS9's sixth season as there was a pretty in depth feature on A time to stand which introduced a new look for the magazine which in my personal opinion was the best design and lay out you've ever done on the magazine.

 

[PaulSimpson]

This is going back a few years around the time of DS9's sixth season as there was a pretty in depth feature on A time to stand which introduced a new look for the magazine which in my personal opinion was the best design and lay out you've ever done on the magazine.

Why?

 

[terpette]

You've hit the exact logic of the redesign... The current mag reflects the LCARS look that has characterised Trek for a very long time.

For the sake of the many fans like me who AREN'T too happy with the Abramsization of Trek, I hope the layout doesn't change too much (though less black backgrounds is always a good idea. Not that I'd stop buying the magazine, but I rather like LCARS and think that new white bridge looks like a hospital operating room.

And I wouldn't mind more technical stuff out of anyone. One of the old Star Trek Magazines... not the old Communicator, but one of the other ones, always had a nice feature on Trek Tech that I really enjoyed. I have a few back issues squirreled around here somewhere but they don't look to be on the bookshelf that's actually in this room.

Karen

 

[startrekfiero]

Just got my copy. There are several things I like about it, some I'm not so keen on. First thoughts:

The good stuff:

• The magazine has a nice, clean, easy to follow layout, with actual black text on white pages. Designers of other magazines should keep in mind that this is common not because of lack of originality, but because it's easy to read. (Star Trek Magazine, I'm looking at you.)
• It's good to see some more detailed information on a variety of collectibles than the book had room for.
• I also like the inclusion of Star Trek books, complete with a David Mack interview.

Not so good:

• The interviews often feel like the same list of questions, with just slight changes, was emailed to several recipients.
• The interviews look like unedited back-and-forth email exchanges. Obviously you don't want to rephrase the answers you get, but you can do something other than having the same question/answer/question/answer format each time. And if the interviewee doesn't have anything to say, it's okay to leave that Q&A out. (Three or four interviews end with, "Is your company doing anything tied into the new movie?" followed by an extended PRspeak remix of "No."
• Though it's good to see some non-TOS material, the "TOS is best!" bias that made the book just a sampling of Trek memorabilia (leaving out the other series for possible future volumes) is not just present but downright intrusive here, as several licensees are asked leading questions about TOS vs other series.

If there are going to be future books and magazines, they may have to move beyond the focus on stuff that Steve Kelley personally finds interesting, from the type of collectibles covered to a greater appreciation for post-TOS Star Trek. A more inclusive approach is necessary. (IMHO, of course.)

This was the first Trek magazine of this type ever done so we were in a way starting from scratch. We like everything we accomplished in this first one while we will be the first to admit that we also see lots of room for improvement as well. Feedback like this is always a good thing as it helps us see what fans want in a magazine like this.
I did post on the various Trek boards many months back asking for feedback on what fans would like to see in a collectibles magazine and used the responses to help in what the content would be in the first issue.
The initial sales are very good and we feel confident that the reaction, sales and feedback will allow us to present to the fans and collectors many more great issues to come.
As an interesting side note we also had an unexpected surprise which is what my publisher calls the imitation is the best form of flattery situation. Not soon after my magazine hit newstands we then saw the next Titan Trek mag come out where it had some of the same content that we we featuring in our magazine. Though it is obvuiously assumed it was just coincidence as great minds think alike

Though it is true that the magazine features quite a few TOS related collectible articles, and the fact remains that TOS sells better than any of the other series combined, what I find interesting is that our cover actually features 7 of 9 from a big article about side show collectibles inside and there are other great non TOS articles in the mag as well like the rare Worf and Troy TNG plates, yet you seem to feel that the mag is heavy with TOS. I am sure that on a future issue that may be heavy with TNG, DS9, etc we will get feedback asking for more TOS. It's just the way it goes

 

[Dayton Ward]

^ I got my issue in yesterday's mail. I enjoyed the Mack interview and a few of the articles on old-school toys and such. The comments about the repetition have already been offered by other folks and you've already noted then for future issues. Therefore, all I've got to say is it's a nice first effort, and I look forward to seeing what you might do in future issues.

As for imitation being a form of flattery, it should be noted that the content of Titan's Trek mag would've been written and approved by CBS at least a month (and possibly closer to two, depending on the issue) before it went to print, so for "those in the know," your mag might be the one perceived as the imitator.

 

[PaulSimpson]

As an interesting side note we also had an unexpected surprise which is what my publisher calls the imitation is the best form of flattery situation. Not soon after my magazine hit newstands we then saw the next Titan Trek mag come out where it had some of the same content that we we featuring in our magazine. Though it is possible it was just coincidence those in the know feel that there were too many in their issue for it to be coincidence

Specifics please - when did your issue come out? And which issue of STM are you referring to?

 

[Steve Roby]

As an interesting side note we also had an unexpected surprise which is what my publisher calls the imitation is the best form of flattery situation. Not soon after my magazine hit newstands we then saw the next Titan Trek mag come out where it had some of the same content that we we featuring in our magazine. Though it is possible it was just coincidence those in the know feel that there were too many in their issue for it to be coincidence

Given the official magazine's lead time, and how recently your magazine appeared, it would pretty much have to be coincidence, unless there were unethical people at your publisher making the content available months ago to unethical people at Titan. This fanboy's voting for coincidence.

 

[startrekfiero]

Our mag had a lead time as well, and the fact that our mags content also had to be approved ahead of time by CBS, their lawyers and who knows who else saw our content to check it all over certainly gave someone a chance to see what our content was enough before hand. So it was pretty interesting to then see some of the same content suddenly show up in the other mag around the same time ours hit news stands. Coincidence? Well, they brought Spock back to life so I suppose anything is possible
Anyway, I am glad to hear that everyone is digging the new mag and I will certainly forward all feedback to my publisher