Spoilers IDW Star Trek - New Visions - John Byrne

[The Lensman]

The latest "photoplay" came out this week.

"Photoplay" is an old name for movies. I don't know why Byrne thinks he's better than using the name "photonovel" since it's far more accurate. It comes off as pretentious.



Anyway, I bought the first one because of nostalgia and it was a novel concept that I was surprised no one here did long ago 'ala Kail's TAS stuff. However the stories aren't good enough to make up for the cringe worthy photoshopping. I'm a long time fan of Byrne's art, but I'm not interested in watching him cut and paste pictures from TrekCore.

I wish he'd go back to drawing Trek. Those were my favorite Trek comics of all time.

 

[Leto_II]

Has she ever had a name in the Byrne series?

"Commodore Robbins," in his Romulans: Schism series, though it wasn't directly used in the recent New Visions story.

No. If Memory Beta is claiming that, then they're conflating information from separate sources again. I just looked through Schisms, and the name "Robbins" is never used. The character is never addressed as anything but "Commodore." She even introduces herself to an enemy captain as merely "the commander of the U.S.S. Yorktown." When held prisoner, she pledges to give only her name, rank, and serial number, but is never actually shown giving any of them.

Woops, you're correct on that -- I'd very recently re-read not only Romulans: Schism (along with Byrne's entire Romulan-related IDW run), but also the entire Early Voyages series on the DVD-ROM over the course of a mere few days, and the various references were still smudged together in my mind into one gigantic mass, as far as sources went.

 

[Idran]

The latest "photoplay" came out this week.

"Photoplay" is an old name for movies. I don't know why Byrne thinks he's better than using the name "photonovel" since it's far more accurate. It comes off as pretentious..

Keep in mind this is the same person that has gone off on rants on his old personal forum about how "thought balloon" is the correct term and using "thought bubble" is as bad as using a racial slur. Pretentious isn't an unfair descriptor for him.

 

[JD]

Wow, sounds like he takes this stuff a little to seriously.

 

[Pauln6]

Wow, sounds like he takes this stuff a little to seriously.

Ha ha or not seriously at all. My tongue is always firmly in my cheek on any forum rant.

 

[Idran]

Not with Byrne; he takes the internet really seriously. Like, for one example, he doesn't allow pseudonyms on his forum at all (or at least he didn't at the time). Real names only, because he doesn't want people to hide behind anonymity, he wants them to stand behind whatever it is they choose to say.

(I don't want to get too far into him, though; this thread's about his work, after all, not the guy.)

 

[Pauln6]

Not with Byrne; he takes the internet really seriously. Like, for one example, he doesn't allow pseudonyms on his forum at all (or at least he didn't at the time). Real names only, because he doesn't want people to hide behind anonymity, he wants them to stand behind whatever it is they choose to say.

(I don't want to get too far into him, though; this thread's about his work, after all, not the guy.)

I love his work but point me to his forum as I have a bone to pick with him for writing out Janice. My tongue is in my cheek and I'm ready for a fight

 

[Christopher]

Not with Byrne; he takes the internet really seriously. Like, for one example, he doesn't allow pseudonyms on his forum at all (or at least he didn't at the time). Real names only, because he doesn't want people to hide behind anonymity, he wants them to stand behind whatever it is they choose to say.

Frankly, I'm not sure I can blame him. There are people out there these days who use Internet anonymity as a shield for truly atrocious behavior, like the people in comics and gaming fandom who issue rape and death threats to any woman who dares to say anything remotely feminist or even criticizes something they like. Most people online aren't like that, but there are some real sickos and bullies out there, cowards who feel free to lash out at others because nobody knows who they are. A real-names-only policy wouldn't solve the underlying problem, but it might make for a more safe and civil environment in contexts where such behavior is a problem, and comics fandom is sadly one of those contexts.

 

[Idran]

Not with Byrne; he takes the internet really seriously. Like, for one example, he doesn't allow pseudonyms on his forum at all (or at least he didn't at the time). Real names only, because he doesn't want people to hide behind anonymity, he wants them to stand behind whatever it is they choose to say.

Frankly, I'm not sure I can blame him. There are people out there these days who use Internet anonymity as a shield for truly atrocious behavior, like the people in comics and gaming fandom who issue rape and death threats to any woman who dares to say anything remotely feminist or even criticizes something they like. Most people online aren't like that, but there are some real sickos and bullies out there, cowards who feel free to lash out at others because nobody knows who they are. A real-names-only policy wouldn't solve the underlying problem, but it might make for a more safe and civil environment in contexts where such behavior is a problem, and comics fandom is sadly one of those contexts.

Oh, I'm in total agreement with you on that. That, at least, I have no problem with, I was just using it as an example for how he's not really the "tongue-in-cheek online rant" type.

 

[Pauln6]

I really enjoyed Resistance. Pacing was good, tension ramped up nicely. I think the science was probably a bit wibbly wobbly but overall a cracking story.

 

[Ghost]

I more or less like the New Visions series and though Resistance was entertaining but I agree with the criticism here and would much rather that he had drawn the comics rather than making them through Photoshop and 3D programs. I hope he goes back to that.

As for Mr Byrne himself and what he is like, I think it is sometimes better not to meet and interact with people whose work you like/enjoy as it might lead to dislike or anger and sometimes makes you change your opinion on said work.
I am sure that some of the writers whose work I don't like might be very nice people but which I would still get in big arguments with because of that.

 

[Villordsutch]

My review of Star Trek: New Visions – “1971/4860.2″ over at Flickering Myth - http://www.flickeringmyth.com/2015/07/comic-book-review-star-trek-new-visions-19714860-2.html

 

[Villordsutch]

My review of My review of Star Trek: New Visions - "The Survival Equation" over at Flickering Myth​ - http://www.flickeringmyth.com/2015/...-trek-new-visions-the-survival-equation″.html

Spoilers

Spoiler: A spoiler about this issue

It's poor

 

[Christopher]

^That's not a spoiler. It's a spoiler-free (and very curt) review.

 

[Villordsutch]

True. I did slightly abuse the spoiler tag, but I felt somewhat let down after the two previous enjoyable issues and marked improvement in JB's photoplay work, and then he delivers, "The Survival Equation" and seems to have forgotten everything.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

The "Space-Pimp" -- as Villordsutch calls him -- is Wrigley, the owner of Wrigley's Pleasure Planet.

Wrigley is portrayed by Scott Adsit, co-creator of Moral Orel, former cast member of 30 Rock, and super-nice guy (I got to meet him at a comic-con a few years ago). Byrne does a nice job of incorporating him into the shots of our TOS regulars.

I think it's clever the way Byrne has made Mudd into a Kirk clone. This way, he can side-step Carmel's likeness legalities and still have the character "appear" in his stories.

 

[Pauln6]

It's an enjoyable story. Excellent use of available imagery, although it didn't flow quite as well as some of the other issues. It was nice to see Chapel get an appearance but the poor woman just recounts the plot of WaLGmo. She didn't even get to go on the landing party. I love the overall TOS feel but it isn't the sixties any more; I just wish the women were allowed to up their game a bit and contribute a bit more. There is certainly enough footage of female characters to use. Number One had a fair shout. Let's see that continue.

 

[Kor]

I absolutely *love* Byrne's early IDW Trek works, especially the way he basically ignored post-TOS continuity.

But I have tried reading through a couple volumes of "New Visions," and to me it looks like the kind of stuff that you force yourself to read and try to convince yourself that you like it because some high-falutin' artiste-types tell you that you're supposed to, but in truth you actually don't.

Kor

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I picked up the issue today, and I also thought it was a bit of an "off" issue for Byrne. The story seemed rather fan-fictiony (in a bad way) to me, what with connecting the androids from "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" with the ones from "I, Mudd." It's the sort of thing that makes the Trek universe smaller and more coincidental, which is the last thing it needs, IMO.

Moreover, I really wasn't happy with the printing in this issue. Everything just seemed way too dark, like someone forgot to up the brightness by 10-20% before it went to the printers. It made the panels hard to discern at times.

I did enjoy the Scott Adsit cameo, though! His likeness seemed much better-integrated than the other cameos by modern-day folks like Paul Kupperberg and Byrne himself. The flatter lighting on their photos is a dead giveaway. So it was nice to see some improvement in that area.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Star Trek New Visions: "Mister Chekov"

John Byrne's latest photoplay-style comic came out this week. I just picked it up today. Has anyone else read it yet?

This issue gives a little backstory to our favorite Russian ensign & shows how a lowly redshirt in engineering first came to the attention of Captain Kirk. I enjoyed the story quite a bit, as it had an interesting science fiction concept and had a nice arc for Pavel Chekov. Byrne also snuck in a nice cameo from a memorable TOS guest-star and a sly reference to "The Naked Time."

The Photoshop work is good for the most part. Byrne is a pretty excellent storyteller and has some inventive layouts at times. There's the occasional head replacement that's obvious as such, but they aren't a big deal.

My main objection would be that the photos print very dark & murky at times. I'm guessing this is due to people only looking at the pages on computer screens before sending the book off to the printer -- screen illumination can often makes things look much brighter than they actually are. This was a problem with the last issue as well. I wish someone would lighten or brighten the pages a bit to improve the overall contrast. Or at least print out some stats to get a better idea of how the pages will reproduce.

What did you folks think?