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Funny, odd, amazing things in the ST Comics

Allyn Gibson said:
The hyper-exaggerated dynamic poses Pablo Marcos gave the TNG characters are wild. I can't imagine Patrick Stewart contorting himself to match the way Marcos sometimes drew him, not without throwing his back out. :)
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The one that always got me was the panel in issue 1 of the TNG miniseries where the landing party leapt out of the way when the big robot fired on them, and Riker was stretched out fully horizontally with an arm thrust out like Superman in flight, except just a foot or so off the ground. In that pose, half a second later, the entire side of his body would've hit the ground and skidded, which hardly seems like a good idea.
 
This one? Geordi did the same just a bit later :D

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I hadn't noticed before that Riker and Geordi exchange places between the first and second panels. :shrug:

I don't know which of the behind-the-scenes materials Marcos had access to, but he seems to have taken the TNG casting sheet description quite literally when drawing Doctor Crusher. (She was described therein as having "the natural walk of a striptease queen.") The posts above sent me to look at the first issue of the mini-series for the first time in years, and I kinda did a "Whoa" when she appeared on page. She's "thirsty," as the youths would say.
 
Pablo Marcos toned down the superhero flavor of his pencils when DC started up their regular TNG series. But it's not too surprising that most of the artists that DC could get for their ST comics were most versed in superhero style storytelling. That was (and is) the main genre for comic books. And when all you've got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. But I think it's worth noting that Marcos learned on the job and adjusted his work accordingly.

And make no mistake, drawing ST is a TOUGH assignment. You've got to draw likenesses, costumes, equipment, and spaceships all relatively accurately and you've thousands of Trek fans reading who are all ready to jump down your throat the moment you get any of them wrong. Not to mention the crapshoot of getting approvals from Paramount and some of the actors (depending on their contracts). Plus, you've got to constantly invent cool new aliens and spaceships for the crew to encounter on their travels. That's a lot to do on a monthly deadline.
 
NCC-73515 said:
The other one is 3 pages later.
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D'oh! The page number in the bottom corner of the top panel should have clued me in...

JonnyQuest037 said:
Not to mention the crapshoot of getting approvals from Paramount and some of the actors (depending on their contracts).
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I have a dim recollection that Bob Greenberger said at one time that Patrick Stewart and LeVar Burton had negotiated likeness approvals. Mike Friedman has said that Stewart would be picky about Picard's hairline, and DC had an inker on staff who would adjust Picard's hair to be longer to meet Stewart's approvals.
 
Yeah, Peter Pachoumis had to redraw Picard in issue #1 of Perchance to Dream because Stewart declared that Pete had drawn his nose too big.

The biggest nightmare for likeness approvals was Scott Bakula (this goes back to his Quantum Leap days; Bob Larkin has told many horror stories of having to repaint Sam Beckett on the covers of the QL novels for Ace back in the day). I had to present Bakula's people with several different images to use for Tales from the Captain's Table. Made me crazy....
 
NCC-73515 said:
They had a lot of trouble drawing the Excelsior in that series :D
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She looks good there. She's just wildly oversized. :)

Tom Sutton's main issues with the Excelsior were:
  • How long is the secondary hull?
  • How long are the nacelles?
  • Do the nacelles extend beyond the stern of the secondary hull?
  • Are the nacelles much shorter than the secondary hull?
  • Is the neck as wide as the secondary hull or is it slimmer?
  • How large is the Excelsior? It she significantly larger than the Enterprise?
I always knew what Sutton was drawing when he drew the Excelsior, even if she didn't always look much like the model. Sutton suggested the idea of the Excelsior, and that was -- and is -- good enough for me. :)
 
Allyn Gibson said:
I have a dim recollection that Bob Greenberger said at one time that Patrick Stewart and LeVar Burton had negotiated likeness approvals.
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Yeah. IIRC, I think they had likeness approvals on any panels where Picard or Geordi appeared solo.
Allyn Gibson said:
Mike Friedman has said that Stewart would be picky about Picard's hairline, and DC had an inker on staff who would adjust Picard's hair to be longer to meet Stewart's approvals.
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As a balding guy, I get that. You don't want somebody to be drawing you with less hair than you actually have.
KRAD said:
Yeah, Peter Pachoumis had to redraw Picard in issue #1 of Perchance to Dream because Stewart declared that Pete had drawn his nose too big.
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I hope that was just in a panel or two, and not throughout the entire issue.
KRAD said:
The biggest nightmare for likeness approvals was Scott Bakula (this goes back to his Quantum Leap days; Bob Larkin has told many horror stories of having to repaint Sam Beckett on the covers of the QL novels for Ace back in the day). I had to present Bakula's people with several different images to use for Tales from the Captain's Table. Made me crazy....
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That's surprising to me, as Bakula seems like such an easygoing guy. To be fair, he is a very tricky guy to draw (young William Shatner is another).
 
That's something I wanna see in an episode!

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SNW redesign discussions? XD

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They revealed what happened to the communicator left behind in Piece of the Action :D

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Nice Trouble with Tribbles reference

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The Klingon Ambassador is attacked... with pencils :D

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Scotty not only has green drinks ;)

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Here they used the actual uniform colors :D

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Dal showed up long ago already! Maybe it actually is that species...

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NCC-73515 said:
SNW redesign discussions? XD

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Since SNW wasn't a thing yet, it was more foreshadowing the design changes of TNG's Enterprise-D, which was the only other Star Trek out there circa 1990.
NCC-73515 said:
Here they used the actual uniform colors :D
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WAY more mustard than the uniforms on the show, IMO.

Most of these moments were written by Peter David, BTW.
 
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A new Romulan ship between the TOS movies and TNG - nicely mixing the Klingon designs they got during TOS with an early warbird design

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In the TUC comic, Azetbur and Kirk hug at the end :D
Can you imagine that in the movie? XD
Well it is Kirk after all so he probably slept with her right after the conference ended :D

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This looks like a SG puddle jumper

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And the Enterprise looks glorious in these comics (DC TOS Monthly 2)

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Issue 40 of the second DC TOS monthly series is supposed to be followed by TUC, in which the end of the A's missions is made clear. Yet in number 41 and many following issues, they're still going on like the whole retirement and decommissioning never happened. Was this ever addressed and I missed it?
 
NCC-73515 said:
Issue 40 of the second DC TOS monthly series is supposed to be followed by TUC, in which the end of the A's missions is made clear. Yet in number 41 and many following issues, they're still going on like the whole retirement and decommissioning never happened. Was this ever addressed and I missed it?
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I just skimmed through the issue, but I couldn't find anything that indicates the story takes place just before The Undiscovered Country. Am I missing something? We're talking about the conclusion of The Tabukan Syndrome story arc, right?
 
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