Star Trek: The Newspaper Strip, Vol. 1: 1979-1981... Reprinted at Last

by Rich Handley

Two decades ago, I began collecting the Star Trek newspaper strips published by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate from 1979 to 1983. Four years' worth of material, spanning 20 storylines, were printed during the course of that series. These stories were well made, but suffered from poor distribution and were largely unknown to fans.

At the time, there wasn't much of an Internet to speak of, so finding these strips proved to be a hugely difficult task, taking several years and a hefty number of dollars to complete. Over the years, I tried to convince other publishers to reprint them (most notably, Pocket Books' John Ordover and Wildstorm Comics' Jeff Mariotte), but despite their best efforts to see the project through, various circumstances prevented this from occurring, much to my and their regret.

After a while, I resigned myself to the fact that the strips would never be reprinted, and that the majority of fans would never get to read them. But now, thanks to IDW's Library of American Comics and editor Dean Mullaney, that is finally changing. In December 2012, the company will begin reprinting the entire series as a two-volume hardcover set. I helped to compile the strips, wrote an introduction to the first volume and assisted Dean editorially, and I am pleased to report that these books will be VERY worth their cover price.

Today, IDW officially listed Volume 1 on its site (here), for which I'm very excited. After all the years I spent trying to see these strips reprinted, it will be so gratifying to hold the final product in my hands.

More information coming soon!