The British Star Trek Newspaper Strips—Fully Reprinted At Last
By Rich Handley
There's
satisfying feedback, and then there's satisfying feedback.
As
some of you know, I've been working with IDW for the past few years to reprint
all of the old Star Trek comic strips from 1969 to 1973 and 1979 to 1983. One of the talented artists on
those strips was a man named Mike Noble. A mutual
friend, Lee Sullivan, helped me arrange
for Mike to receive copies of these books, which reprint his 40-plus-year-old
work.
An example of Mike Noble's wonderful artwork from the 13th U.K. storyline, "Mutiny on the Dorado." |
Lee told me today that Mike is very happy with how the books came out—and specifically with the introductory materials I wrote. That alone justifies all the work that went into writing them. I'm
a great fan of Mike Noble's beautiful artwork, so knowing that he thinks we did
justice to his legacy is something I'm very proud of.
As it happens, I received a PDF of the fifth and final volume (two volumes reprint the U.S. strips, three for the U.K. strips) just last night, to review prior to printing, and it looks fantastic. The third British volume collects strips that, back in the 1960s, were printed in such a way that they came out a bit muddy and dulled, so I was worried that this volume might not look as impressive as the others. Silly me. I needn't have worried, as IDW's Library of American Comics (LOAC) imprint cleaned them up extremely well, just as they did for the previous volumes—they look far better than I could have hoped.
As it happens, I received a PDF of the fifth and final volume (two volumes reprint the U.S. strips, three for the U.K. strips) just last night, to review prior to printing, and it looks fantastic. The third British volume collects strips that, back in the 1960s, were printed in such a way that they came out a bit muddy and dulled, so I was worried that this volume might not look as impressive as the others. Silly me. I needn't have worried, as IDW's Library of American Comics (LOAC) imprint cleaned them up extremely well, just as they did for the previous volumes—they look far better than I could have hoped.
Volume 2 collects storylines #18-24 (TV21 issues #65-105), storylines #25-30 (Valiant issues #1-42), and the TV21 1971 annual, with more supplementary materials by some hack named Rich Handley. |
For
many years, I'd never met a single Star Trek fan besides me who owned a complete run
of these old newspaper and magazine strips. Now, thanks to the efforts of Chris and Dean,
thousands of fans have the strips on their shelves, and I can actually discuss them with other comics enthusiasts, which is much better than being the only guy on the block. It was my honor to be involved in making it
so.
Eaglamoss will soon reprint a portion of the UK strips as part of its Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection, and I've been privileged to be a part of that project as well (as discussed here). Eaglemoss has been doing a phenomenal job of repackaging these and many other Star Trek comics from throughout the past five decades, and I'm thrilled to see the U.K. strips being included in that set of hardcover books. Since Eaglemoss is a British publisher, it's only fitting that the strips would end up back in print in the land that first spawned them.
Eaglemoss is reprinting part of the U.K. strips from IDW's U.S. reprints for Eaglemoss's U.K. audience. It's Trekception at its finest. |
After remaining Star Trek's most obscure comics series for decades, the British strips are finally getting their time in the spotlight. It's much deserved, and IDW, The Library of American Comics, and Eaglemoss have done fans a great service in making them widely available at last.
Gaze upon how cool that looks. Go ahead... gaze upon it. |
Labels: comics, eaglemoss, IDW, Library of American Comics, Mike Noble, Star Trek
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