Neat bit of trivia on "So Near The Touch" from STAR TREK Annual #1

[JonnyQuest037]

I just learned a neat bit of trivia about George Takei's life that colored my reading of "So Near The Touch," the story Takei cowrote with Peter David in 1990's Star Trek Annual #1 from DC Comics.

For those of you who haven't read it, the story concerns a romance for Mr. Sulu with Dr. Corazon Kohwangko. The couple have a Meet Cute when Sulu runs into her jogging at Starbase 27. I knew that Takei had an interest in jogging and was a chocoholic in real life (two traits given to Cory in the story), but I didn't realize until reading this Buzzfeed article today that Takei actually met his husband Brad Altman at a gay jogging club back in the '80s, where he asked Altman to help him train for a marathon. So Takei gave Sulu a fictional meeting with his love interest that paralleled how Takei met his love Altman in real life. That's sweet.

 

[rfmcdpei]

That is a pretty remarkable inclusion.

I wrote about that story last March, as (among other things) an oddly prescient take on social distancing.

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/so-...e-takei-comic-about-social-distancing.303663/

 

[JonnyQuest037]

That is a pretty remarkable inclusion.

I wrote about that story last March, as (among other things) an oddly prescient take on social distancing.

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/so-...e-takei-comic-about-social-distancing.303663/

I hadn't thought about it in that light, but you're absolutely right!

 

[rfmcdpei]

I have to say that he and David got the mania and anger among some of the touch-starved down, the willingness of some to risk not just other people but themselves for the sake of feeling normal.

 

[DEWLine]

I remember that comic being discussed when Mr. Takei came to Ottawa one year...

 

[rfmcdpei]

What did Takei say about the story, @DEWLine ?

 

[DEWLine]

There's one bit I particularly remember about the naming of the dominant religion of that story's planet, and of its leader...after a certain now-dead US senator. I'm sure you remember that story from other sources...and I wish I could remember better the details of what else he said, but it's been well over twenty years since that visit. Maybe thirty. The Chateau Laurier - where Creation held the event - has changed hands at least once since then...