Star Trek Newspaper Comic Strips

[KirkPicard]

Rich Handley has posted his entire comic strip collection for viewing and downloading here: http://www.hassleinbooks.com/startrek/ I am one grateful fan and can only imagine that acquiring, scanning, and cataloging all of the strips was an excruciating process at the outset of his quest.

Every strip from the US and UK are present and are in pristine quality. The Memory-Alpha article is well researched and possibly the definitive guide. http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Star_Trek_Comic_Strip_(US)

 

[Steve Roby]

Cool. I got the CD-ROMs of this stuff that Rich was doing a few years back. There's some good stuff in the US strips in particular.

 

[Mike Farley]

Neat. The UK strips kind of remind me of the early Gold Key issues.

 

[Christopher]

From what I've read so far, the UK strips make the Gold Key comics look brilliant. "Captain Kurt?" "The space wagon?" Oy. And I love that text story where they refer to the "unemotional" Spock in one paragraph and say "Spock laughed" in the next.

On the other hand, the Thomas Warkentin strips from the LA Times Syndicate are fairly good. Certainly the art is better than the Marvel TMP-era comic books of the same period.

 

[Mike Farley]

Yeah, it looks like whoever did the UK strips had never seen an episode of Star Trek in their lives. Or, at least based on the first couple of strips, a picture of the Enterprise.

 

[Jbarney]

I got these several years ago and have had them in my collection for a while now. Have not read all of them yet.

 

[Christopher]

Well, I've finally read "The Wristwatch Plantation," the story Niven co-wrote. For years, I've been wondering what the title meant, and the answer turned out to be less interesting than I'd imagined.

 

[cbp44189]

I kinda like the UK strips. It's a different perspective. Same but different.

 

[seigezunt]

I remember cutting some of these out of the paper at the time, but lost interest.

 

[Christopher]

Ooh, the quality of the art in the US comic strip plummets hugely after story 13. Stories 14 through 16 look like amateur stuff, simply dreadful, and 17 is variable. It gets better in the last few stories, but never returns to the quality of the Warkentin or Harris art.

Interesting how the last few stories seem to be trying to fill in the pre-TWOK period, with Kirk as an admiral and Spock technically being captain of the Enterprise, with Kirk getting assigned back to it temporarily for a special mission (though he stays on afterward for no evident reason until eventually he's grounded again). In the last 2 or 3 stories, I kind of get the sense that they knew the end was near, since I didn't see any way they could continue on indefinitely from the way they were going.

Overall, though, a fascinating bit of lost Trek history. I really enjoyed getting to read more TMP-era stories, and particularly getting a look at the TMP-look Enterprise and its multispecies crew in action.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I really enjoyed getting to read more TMP-era stories, and particularly getting a look at the TMP-look Enterprise and its multispecies crew in action.

Ditto.

Maybe it's time to roll this out. My little homage to CLB's "Ex Machina", by changing the text of only two balloons!

 

[Jbarney]

Ooh, the quality of the art in the US comic strip plummets hugely after story 13. Stories 14 through 16 look like amateur stuff, simply dreadful, and 17 is variable. It gets better in the last few stories, but never returns to the quality of the Warkentin or Harris art.

Interesting how the last few stories seem to be trying to fill in the pre-TWOK period, with Kirk as an admiral and Spock technically being captain of the Enterprise, with Kirk getting assigned back to it temporarily for a special mission (though he stays on afterward for no evident reason until eventually he's grounded again). In the last 2 or 3 stories, I kind of get the sense that they knew the end was near, since I didn't see any way they could continue on indefinitely from the way they were going.

Overall, though, a fascinating bit of lost Trek history. I really enjoyed getting to read more TMP-era stories, and particularly getting a look at the TMP-look Enterprise and its multispecies crew in action.

I think I am in the minority when I say the post STMP time period is one of the most interesting in times in Trek. I really hope future comics and novels explore the 2273-2285 era with some detail. I know there are some stories about what happened during those years but any additions are welcome.

 

[seigezunt]

I think I am in the minority when I say the post STMP time period is one of the most interesting in times in Trek. I really hope future comics and novels explore the 2273-2285 era with some detail. I know there are some stories about what happened during those years but any additions are welcome.

I'll join you in that minority.

 

[Paris]

^And I third the opinion. New stories from the lost 8 years would be most welcome. It's a shame that Christopher's Ex Machina never got a sequel. Hopefully one day he'll get another chance to visit the second 5YM...

 

[Steve67]

Rich Handley has posted his entire comic strip collection for viewing and downloading here: http://www.hassleinbooks.com/startrek/ I am one grateful fan and can only imagine that acquiring, scanning, and cataloging all of the strips was an excruciating process at the outset of his quest.

Every strip from the US and UK are present and are in pristine quality. The Memory-Alpha article is well researched and possibly the definitive guide. http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Star_Trek_Comic_Strip_(US)

Thanks so much for posting this! In June, 1982 I was visiting relatives in North Carolina and comic book/strip nut that I was, I immediately rooted around their local paper and was thrilled to see a Star Trek comic strip. I snipped the story for the week we were up there and still have them. In fact, it was "The Wristwatch Plantation" that I saw, and that story was nearing its completion. Now 27 years later I get to finally read the whole thing. Such nostalgia...

 

[F. King Daniel]

Captian Kurt!!!!!!!

I LOVE IT!

 

[Christopher]

Well, the UK strips c. 1970 have finally caught on that Dave Bailey isn't a regular character and Sulu, Scotty, and Uhura are. And they finally have shuttlecraft instead of "space wagons." They're still getting the uniform colors wrong, though, and the stories and characterizations are nothing like ST. Spock is written indistinguishably from any other character, without even a token reference to logic or emotional control. And despite the constant references to the Enterprise being on a mission of peaceful contact, the stories routinely involve fighting enemy aliens or taking sides in wars. So they aren't really ST comics, just generic space adventure comics with the trappings of ST.

 

[Christopher]

One thing I forgot to add: there's one aspect that the UK comics got "wrong" that I wish TOS had actually done. Intriguingly, in the UK strips, Uhura routinely serves as the bridge watch officer (i.e. she has the conn) while the command crew is away or during the night shift. It's portrayed as perfectly acceptable and not the least bit strange to have a woman in a command position, and this is in comic strips published in 1969-70. That's impressive.

But brother, is this Starfleet ever violent compared to the one onscreen. A very trigger-happy bunch, especially Kirk.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The uniform colours don't improve - Kirk wears red and everyone else blue.

Check out Chekov in a weird soldier getup...

Messed-up Trek = good

I LOVE IT EVEN MORE!!!!