• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Latest acquisition!

Today’s stash includes the latest IDW “Star Trek” comic, “Discovery: Succession” #4, set in the Mirror Universe. Also or previews of cover art (in “Comic Shop News”) for the upcoming “‘Star Trek’ vs ‘Transformers’” mini-series. Appearances by Arex, M’Ress and Kali indicate that it will be in the style of the Filmation’s animated series of “Star Trek”, which is very cool!


New Trek comics
by Ian McLean, on Flickr
And I believe the Transformers elements are based off of the original animated series. It's basically the two franchises classic animated series meeting.
 
And I believe the Transformers elements are based off of the original animated series. It's basically the two franchises classic animated series meeting.

Which still seems odd to me, since I see the two as being on opposite sides of a sea change in TV animation. Between the '70s and the '80s, American TV animation was largely outsourced to Asia, became more violent as censorship pressures eased, and became overwhelmingly based on toy lines. So I see TAS and Transformers as coming from totally different eras, so it's a strange pairing for me.
 
Any version of Trek with any version of Transformers is a strange pairing for me. I’m too old to have ever been interested in Transformers.
 
I was probably about the right age for Transformers when it came out -- I watched plenty of other contemporary cartoons -- but I never much cared for it or G.I. Joe.
 
I don't really see where Star Trek & Transformers is really any stranger of a combo than Star Trek & Planet Apes or Ghostbusters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
 
My first Trek exposure was TAS (in b/w), but the students in one of my first few years of teaching (1984) where heavily into "Transformers" toys (created from two different transforming robot toylines from Takara: "Diaclone" and "Micro Change"/"Microman"). I thought the early Transformers were underwhelming, but the popularity with the kids was huge!
 
I don't really see where Star Trek & Transformers is really any stranger of a combo than Star Trek & Planet Apes or Ghostbusters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

It's not so much Star Trek and Transformers, since both of those are franchises that span decades and have been presented in many different styles. It's the choice to pair the specific design style of Star Trek: The Animated Series from 1973-4 with that of the original Transformers cartoon (called Generation 1 by fans) from 1984-7, locking both into very particular time periods. The implication of the pairing, presumably, is that those two animated series and styles go together, that they're part of a shared classical era in TV animation. But to me, as someone who grew up during that era, I see them as belonging to radically different, perhaps even diametrically opposed periods in TV animation, because of the wholesale transformation (no pun intended) in the production methods and content of American TV animation in the intervening decade, as I described above.

If any Filmation show were to be paired with Transformers G1, I'd think, it'd most logically be He-Man, since that's from (and was essentially the originator of) the same era of toy-based, first-run syndicated, weekday-afternoon animated series that were heavy on fighting and built around formulaic battles with the same foes five days a week. Conversely, if you were looking for a non-Filmation contemporary of TAS that it could be crossed over with, the 1973-5 Saturday morning schedule didn't offer too many options, but the most credible choices would probably be Super Friends, The Jetsons, and Land of the Lost. Maybe The New Scooby-Doo Movies if you wanted to get really kitschy.
 
A ST-Land of The Lost cross-over could be fun. Is there a Gorn-Sleestak connection? Are the pylons the work of one of the ancient races from Trek - the Preservers maybe?
 
It's not so much Star Trek and Transformers, since both of those are franchises that span decades and have been presented in many different styles. It's the choice to pair the specific design style of Star Trek: The Animated Series from 1973-4 with that of the original Transformers cartoon (called Generation 1 by fans) from 1984-7, locking both into very particular time periods. The implication of the pairing, presumably, is that those two animated series and styles go together, that they're part of a shared classical era in TV animation. But to me, as someone who grew up during that era, I see them as belonging to radically different, perhaps even diametrically opposed periods in TV animation, because of the wholesale transformation (no pun intended) in the production methods and content of American TV animation in the intervening decade, as I described above.

If any Filmation show were to be paired with Transformers G1, I'd think, it'd most logically be He-Man, since that's from (and was essentially the originator of) the same era of toy-based, first-run syndicated, weekday-afternoon animated series that were heavy on fighting and built around formulaic battles with the same foes five days a week. Conversely, if you were looking for a non-Filmation contemporary of TAS that it could be crossed over with, the 1973-5 Saturday morning schedule didn't offer too many options, but the most credible choices would probably be Super Friends, The Jetsons, and Land of the Lost. Maybe The New Scooby-Doo Movies if you wanted to get really kitschy.
I think you probably gave this way more than than the people at IDW did.
 
I think you probably gave this way more than than the people at IDW did.

"The funny thing is, even though I'm the 'Transformers' guy on this comic - I've written a lot of 'Transformers' comics, after all - I've always been a huge 'Star Trek' fan, ever since I was a kid..."
[Co-writer and IDW Editor-in-Chief, John Barber.]

"This is definitely a dream-come-true project for me... It's my first time getting to draw 'Transformers' and 'Star Trek'. Not only am I a huge 'Trek' fan, but I was born in the 80s, so I grew up in the golden era of Saturday morning cartoons - and 'The Transformers' was definitely on my list! This comic really means something special to me..." [Artist Philip Murphy.]

"'Star Trek vs Transformers' is finally giving us the chance to combine two of our most prominent licenses in a style that will delight both fans of the original animated series and new readers..." [Associate editor Chase Marotz.]

"Everything is definitely very G1-inspired... and Phil Murphy's art really makes it look like it's straight out of the [1984] cartoon... We'll see a couple of characters, like Windblade, in the '80s cartoon style for the first time here..." [Editor David Mariotte.]
 
"Born in the '80s" -- that makes sense. Someone who grew up later and only discovered TAS in retrospect wouldn't have experienced the radical change in TV animation styles as it happened, the way I did growing up in the '70s and '80s. The new stuff and the stuff they discovered in rerun syndication would've blended together for them. (Much like how TOS and TAS blended together in 5-year-old me's perception as a single show that was sometimes live-action and sometimes animated.)
 
The Star Trek: Spaceflight Chronology by Stan & Fred Goldstein and @Rick Sternbach arrived today. Have always wanted this book and got this copy for $12 (plus $5 shipping) through an Amazon third-party seller.

It is in incredibly good shape for a near-40 year old book.
 
Prey III - The Hall of Heroes (Die Halle der Helden). The German cover has also a Klingon title (like book I and II) - great! :klingon:
 
Bought star trek A time to kill and a time to heal. And a time for war and a time for peace on e book.
If they are good maybe i am going to buy the rest of the A time to novels.
 
Bought star trek A time to kill and a time to heal. And a time for war and a time for peace on e book.
If they are good maybe i am going to buy the rest of the A time to novels.

All three are very good, from what I remember (the only three I read). Though I believe they are thought to be the best of the series.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top