Year 3 of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 1

Week 1: Fancy Dress

"Before and after." Watercolour clown sketch over black finepoint Sharpie and masking fluid on watercolour paper, with a collaged silhouette.

Update:

Week 1: Fancy Dress II

"Betelgeusian Chief Ambassador." This is the most expensive Hollywood costume ever worn in a movie by a screen extra - valued at $US10,000 in 1979 - but is barely glimpsed in the movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The bolt of fabric used in the garment dates back to Cecil B. DeMille and contains real gold and silver thread. Very fancy dress! Oil pastels and Kindy Glitter Glitz on Quill "marbletone" cream paper, and based on a publicity still.

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 16

Week 16: Book cover.

For this week's theme, "Book Cover", I finally put a design on paper that has been in my head for decades. I have tried (and also not-yet tried) to commission same from several professional artists I know. You know, "One day, when you're not too busy..." I was willing to pay $$$$ to get someone to create a cover for me, to my exacting specifications, that would be a homage to several genres - and Bob Peak's poster art for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" - and/or might have been great for a website front page, or even a "Best of..." collection of my writing over several decades. "Have Phaser, Will Travel" was the name of a regular column I wrote bimonthly for a science fiction media newsletter (1982-1992), and then the name of my first blog. This Challenge has inspired me to say, instead, in the words of the Little Red Hen, "I'll do it all by myself!" (Who knows, maybe it's an eBook cover for an actual digital collection?)

Watercolours on white acrylic gesso primed canvas sheet, with double-ended, waterproof, black Sharpie outlining, plus titles in Pages. Stars are opaque white Signo pigment ink.

Exciting update:
This future cover art arrived from a Meetup and Facebook Friend whom I have never met in person. Yet. Thank you so much Benjamin Angus. I am thrilled and impressed by your talent and generosity! Now I have to compile that eBook of decades of articles and columns.

Bye bye Betelgeuse?

"I shall stick my fins into my ears and go
'La la la la la la. Not listening!'"

According to adelaidenow.com.au, "one of the biggest stars in our galactic neighbourhood - Betelgeuse - is expected to go supernova 'soon'.

"The infamous red super-giant star in Orion’s nebula - Betelgeuse - is predicted to go gangbusters and the impending super-nova may reach Earth before 2012. The second biggest star in the Orion constellation is losing mass, a typical indication that a gravitation collapse is occurring.

"'When that happens, we'll get our second sun,' according to Dr Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland."

A cameo for Therin

An interesting use of Youtube and photo editing tools to present a "Star Trek" fan story as a photostory:


"Angels of Acheron, Part I",
a photostory sequel to "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"
by pauln6
Spot the cameo by Therin of Andor in Part II:


"Angels of Acheron, Part II",
by pauln6

Thanks Paul! Looking forward to Part III! And, in case you mised the cameo, here it is:



The central character in this still is a female Andorian security guard, utilising Suzie Plakson's "Tarah" head (from "Star Trek: Enterprise"). She'll feature more in Part III, Paul informs me.

The return of Will Decker!

Commander Will Decker arrived in my mailbox today. V'ger must have finished with him. He's a bit grey in the face, and has also misplaced his Perscan buckle and his shoes. But he's aliiiiiiiiiive!

I've had my Mego 12" "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" Klingon since 1980. He was bought from a local flea market by a friend but, when I raced back, any other figures had long gone. Then, in January 1984, I found the rest in the dealers' room at a New York Creation Convention. Kirk, Spock and the Arcturian were all $25 each and Decker and Ilia were $35 each. Sadly, they wouldn't take traveller's cheques and I couldn't spare the cash to get Decker and Ilia. Sob. Little did I realise how shortpacked was Decker!

Then, about twelve years ago, a beautiful, boxed Ilia turned up in a local collectibles shop for about $90. Opening the packaging, I was horrified that she had a large, dark purple spot on her bald head, transferred from the inner cardboard box liner. Luckily, that mark faded away, even as poor ol' Kirk and Spock's faces continued to take on the dreaded "Mego greying disease". This Decker is a bit grey, and was loose, with battered paintwork on his hair, no shoes or buckle, and a uniform needing some attention, but he was cheap enough - and it's great he can finally be reunited with Ilia. (I've lost out on a number of Will Decker eBay auctions over the decades; I love the "Buy it now" option.)

Amazing Grace

I recently found a batch of misplaced photo albums, which I hadn't seen since moving house in 2000. One album had this lone Polaroid shot, taken by me, among a lot of science fiction media convention photos and newspaper clippings from the 1980s.

Grace Lee Whitney, Yeoman Janice Rand of the original "Star Trek" television series, was at a Brisbane ST convention a few weeks after "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" premiered here. She hadn't already seen the movie, because she was a little distressed she hadn't been invited back after "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (as Transporter Chief Rand), but she knew the fans would ask her what she thought of the film, so she went to a local screening with the con committee.

At the convention, I was essentially representing the Sydney club for some national convention decision-making and was lucky enough to be at GLW's table for the con banquet - and she bought champagne for the whole table, but drank only mineral water herself.


GLW in 1982, Sydney.

For her return trip to the US, she had to pass through Sydney and I offered to organise to pick her up from the domestic terminal and get her across to the international terminal in time for her flight (above).

Years later, in an interview with "Starlog" magazine, she discussed her amazing ups and terrible downs of her showbiz career - and credited her wonderful experiences with the Aussie fans at that convention with her decision to go teetotal. We had no idea we were seeing Grace's new beginning at the time! (Either that or she was so appalled by Aussies that we drove her from the drink!)


Grace is carried off by alien fan Scott Sullivan at ConQuest '82, a few days earlier.
Photo by Australasian Post's Clair Jolliffe.
(Sorry about the vertical lines from the 80s-era photo album.)

Lots of new Andorians!

Wounded Andorian (cover); the colony's Prime Minister and his wife; and a guard.

How exciting to pick up the recent IDW Publications' "Star Trek" comic, "Leonard McCoy: Frontier Doctor" #1, written and illustrated by John Byrne, and discovered a host of new Andorian guest stars, coloured by Lovern Kindzierski.


Theela the stowaway!

Significantly, this comic is probably the first "Star Trek" comic to feature more than one Andorian antennae style in the same work:



Most of the Andorians featured in this story, "Weeds", have the original "crown of the head" of the location of the antennae, as per the original series of "Star Trek". However, the spokesman for the delegation that arrives at the end has antennae resembling Shran's distinctive look from "Star Trek: Enterprise"!

The comic takes place in the time preceding "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", in which the Andorians had a different look again: thin, tapering, tendrill-like antennae. Previously, most comic tie-ins set within TMP's time period had to reflect that movies's design for the Andorians, although there were eventually some exceptions.



And I finally caught up with details on the Andorians who used to be featured at "Star Trek: The Experience" theme hotel in Las Vegas! Of course, because the actors playing Tahryn and K'Stran needed to be able to interact with the general public, their antennae were a combination of several styles. The "Star Trek" bonus Blu-Ray disc, "Evolutions" has a great segment called "Farewell to 'Star Trek: The Experience'"!



Lt Commander Tahryn is serving the Andorian Imperial Guard as a member of the Diplomatic Corps. Her current assignment is to interact with the non-Starfleet aliens present on the station and report her impressions of the humans and non-humans she encounters back to Andorian Imperial Command. Often seen at Quark's. Portrayed by April Hebert.

K'Stran Thran is a lieutenant in the Andorian Imperial Guard, serving as intel attaché. He formerly served in Starfleet, on the USS Potemkin, and fought honorably in the Dominion War. Often seen at Quark's. Portrayed by Kerstan Szczepanski.

TMP vs JJ ST?

You know, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (TMP) is still my favourite Star Trek movie of all time - my favourite movie of all time - but JJ Abrams' "Star Trek" (2009) is a very close second. I also thoroughly enjoyed ST II, III, IV, and much of VI.

When I joined ST fandom in early 1980, I had diehard TOS people telling me that TMP left them feeling "empty" and "unsatisfied". I spent many months trying to defend a film that all of my new friends thought was a boring piece of crap. I heard the exact same criticism from others re ST II (in fact, there's a whole thread on this over in the ST Movies section). Ditto ST III. Other fans have told me that they felt ST IV was a dumbing down of the franchise for the masses and that it left them feeling "patronised", "empty" and "unsatisfied".

Why is TMP better? Well, it has a certain majesty to the way it was filmed. It was treating TV material to the benefits of a huge motion picture budget, and a three-to-six month principal photography shoot - when the cast were used to filming a one-hour episode in less than ten days. It was reuniting a cast who hadn't worked together in a decade. And the production design and direction put me, a lowly member of the audience, who knew very little about the characters and their previous adventures, onto that ship!

It's hard to describe, and it was made worse in 1980 when I couldn't find many TOS fans who actually liked TMP. For me, who was also lucky enough to have already read the novelization! - it became a film that fully submersed me in the action.

JJ went quite close. While I never felt I was on that ship, I really did relate to the characters, and felt their losses - of lives they would never get to experience due to the changed timeline. Both films certainly rely upon a lot of nostalgia value, both plundering it to make us relate to the material, and rejoicing in it without a hint of self-consciousness, but TMP pips JJ at the post for the way it affected me as an audience member. Mind you, I was a naive 21 yo watching TMP, and a more seasoned, very Trek-knowledgeable 50yo watching ST XI.



You'll never please 100% of fandom with a ST movie, but this one probably went closer to that 100% than any other. Its high rating (currently 95% approval from 273 reviewers!) over on Rotten Tomatoes still staggers me. The backing of Leonard Nimoy was also significant. I also find it ironic that so many people now look back on TMP with a quirky fondness. That film that was scoffed at, as "The Motionless Picture", now has a secret niche in the soft spot of many TOS fans' hearts.

I've actually spoken to quite a few Sydney celebs and society folk who were at the Sydney Opera House world premiere of JJ's ST and they said that the praise for the movie, from the 2000 invited guests (and lucky 200 ST fans who were able to buy tickets to the premiere online), was almost universal. Standing ovations in many sections of the Concert Hall. Those society folk then went forth on Twitter, and their Facebook, MySpace sites and spread positive vibes to the world! Brave JJ and Paramount! Imagine if those 2200 people had hated the movie with a passion. Nobody was paying them to be positive about the film.

JJ promised us a ST movie that would reach beyond existing fandom, and get people talking positively about ST again. He achieved that. I felt it was a successful emotional rollercoaster of a movie; some fans managed to not be affected by it. C'est la vie, I guess! Every time I see the opening scenes I choke up. So do my friends. Nero's attack on Vulcan was unexpected and with amazing consequences. I find it hard not to be emotionally compromised!

If you didn't get anything out of the movie, I can only say you seem to be in a minority. And better luck next time?

Six times dizzy?

Just back from viewing #6 of the Star Trek movie at Glenbrook, in the lower Blue Mountains. Still just as good as the last five times. I got to meet Sam (pictured!), my email penpal (of over a decade!) and a fellow Playtrek listserv member - and he loved his first screening of the new movie. (He drove two hours to get there, and another two hours home. I was coming from the other direction.)

While I loved "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" both in 1979 and 2009, many other fans complained bitterly, in those months after TMP's premiere, that it was slow and plodding (they called it "Star Trek: The Motionless Picture"), but many have come to an (almost-begrudging) appreciation of the film. Boosted along by the DVD-DE ("Director's Edition"), of course, but the film is no longer derided with the same gusto as in the early 80s.

With today's sixth viewing of JJ's ST, I think I've made as many return visits to this film as I did to TMP in 1980. It was as engaging to me, this time, as it was the first time I saw it. It is thoroughly entertaining, with so much rich detail that I see something new every time.

Kinda like TMP - where it took me two viewings to even notice the alien ambassadors (San Francisco) and crewmembers (rec deck) who were depicted in my glossy cinema program - remember those? - and then four viewings just to find all five Andorians!

JJ's ST is probably more entertaining than TMP, although nostalgia wins out so it doesn't displace TMP on my ultimate list. But I can see this movie staying popular over time - at least until the next one kicks its arse. We'll see.

How I missed the "Star Wars" boat

I came to "Star Trek" fandom, and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", having purposely avoided the first "Star Wars" phenomenon.

I remember the huge level of fuss about the coming of "Star Wars": six full months of hearing how it had been a monster hit in the USA, the news reports of lines of fans going around blocks outside any cinemas screening it, and - much later - even the sign that eventually went up outside the Sydney cinema screening it, which read "Our 14th big month!"

Somehow, I also avoided "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", too. (And later, "ET: The Extraterrestrial".) I guess I avoided the first SW due mainly to its hype, and yet I was attracted by publicity for other biggies like "Superman: The Movie", "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (oh wow!!!!!) - and then "Superman II" (a full six months before it premiered in the US).

As a result of TMP, I also got hooked on the then-quite-fledgling "Starlog" magazine. After reading lots of related articles, I eagerly attended "The Empire Strikes Back" in first-run (without having seen "A New Hope"). A friend and I even attended "Return of the Jedi" as Andorians! What fun! Silly film, but the atmosphere of the opening night was great.

It was the "Star Trek" film franchise which continued to be my fandom of choice, and catching up on TOS was a great challenge in the early 80s. The episodes weren't screening on TV, and I had to catch five new adventures at a time, at Saturday Star Trek marathons held at the old ANZAC House in the CBD. (Originally they showed six episodes per month, but I was working in my Dad's bread shop in 1980, and I'd arrive in the city partway through the second episode of each marathon.)

I had no initial comparison between SW and TMP whatsoever. Even though I did enjoy the first two SW very much, and the total ridiculousness that was "Jedi" (still a fun night at the cinema, though), I'd already been enchanted by TMP. I was 21. TMP spoke to me. It was an all-immersing experience. "Star Wars" - even "Star Wars pre-publicity - didn't speak to me; it was just a fun movie I eventually caught on television.

Once I'd found ST fandom in 1980, and caught up on every TOS episode I'd missed, I was part of a large group who went to first night openings of anything science fictiony. With "Star Wars", I'd kinda missed the boat. I was 19, in my first year at teachers college, studying hard, and firmly believed that one ever never went to the cinema alone. Most of my college friends were mature age students, and "Star Wars" never really rated a mention with them.

I've never really even checked the date before: according to IMDb, SW premiered Down Under on 27 October 1977. My family had just moved house, and I was deep into my first practicum as a student teacher: a class of 43 Kindergarten children. Lots of long commuting by public transport, and weekends spent making teaching aids and writing lesson plans. Wrong tme to discover a new SF franchise.

TMP, on the other hand, had premiered the week after my college course finished - and I was a free man! Its gala sneak preview had been a few days before my 21st birthday, and old school friends had been to that screening and couldn't stop talking about it the night of my party. I was inspired!

So much is in the timing, isn't it?

And, as for the SW revival: I had very much enjoyed the theatrical re-release of the first trilogy with their new prints, and new CGI and bonus scenes added. But then came "Episode One: The Phantom Menace". I was there, at a midnight screening (reading a "Star Trek" novel waiting for the curtain to rise).

Ugh! I loathed that movie. From the opening banner scroll that mentioned politics and trade routes, it was s tedious. Ick. "The Phantom Menace" was a mess! Give me "Star Trek" any day.


"Star Trek: The Motion Picture":
I felt like I was in that movie. Hence my first
fanfic featured one Therin of Andor.
(Drawing by Kamu; reprinted with permission.)

It’s Trek, Jim, but not as we know it…

This September, highlights from all eleven Star Trek films will be featured – on a giant movie screen - with the music played by a full orchestra at the Sydney Opera House, venue of the recent "Star Trek" movie premiere!

The Sydney Symphony will take the audience on a journey back to 1979, where the "Star Trek" motion picture series began, with "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". The session concludes with scenes and music from the smash hit movie of 2009: JJ Abrams' "Star Trek". The first half of the program also includes the music and imagery from "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Transformers".

I understand this world premiere concert is not to be missed – resistance is futile!

Klingon Kommercialism

I recently found this on Youtube. It dates back to the first-ever themed "Happy Meals" released by McDonald's in the USA, promoting "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"!

Evolution of a Star Trek fan

Over at TrekBBS, we were asked to track our evolution as a Star Trek fan. Mine was quite a gradual awareness.

* Kids at my primary school collecting Scanlen's "Star Trek" bubble gum cards (Topps in the USA). My grandmother owned the household's only television set, so "Star Trek" must have clashed with one of "her" shows.

* My Year 5 teacher's wall chart where we kept score of our weekly spelling and dictation results. It was our "Star Trek" chart and Mr Brown dispensed gold, silver and coloured gummed paper stars, depending on our results (1969).

* Filmation's animated Star Trek series (TAS) on b/w Saturday morning TV, and then daily breakfast TV TAS repeats "for the first time in colour" a few years later. The highlight of "The Super Flying Fun Show".

* Also a few TOS episodes, which were selected for presentation on a Saturday evening(?) "for the first time in colour", when colour TV came to Australia in 1975.

* Five serialized b/w daily liftouts in a Sydney nightly newspaper in late 1979: "My Week on the Star Trek Movie Set!" by Aussie journalist, Jim Oram. At my 21st birthday party a few weeks later, a friend boasted how he'd just been to the gala premiere, where half of the cinema had fans in costume, and they applauded all the characters' entrances.

* Finding the ST:TMP novelization in a rack at the checkout of my local supermarket. Read it in one weekend.

* Spending a 21st birthday record voucher on Jerry Goldsmith's TMP soundtrack LP, having still not yet seen the movie. (All those cool aliens on the inner sleeve!)

* Seeing TMP on the big screen. By myself, because no one else I asked wanted to go.

My Mego "Star Trek" movie bridge playset

Some email pals asked me about this, so I figured it was easier to put it in a blog entry:



My cool vacu-formed white plastic Mego bridge set, from "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", was bought on eBay about 1999 or 2000. They were quite rare, and I'd always coveted them.

I plan to paint it eventually. It's populated with my Mego TMP action figures and customised alien ambassadors. Several of these were also eBay purchases. I love the way it looks like the ambassadors have just walked out of the framed lobbycard.

To think I once wrote to Heroes World and had the chance to buy the aliens at these prices, but didn't complete the order:



Sigh...

The cosmic consciousness II

A few weeks ago, I discussed the concept of an inexplicable Star Trek cosmic consciousness. Today, on TrekBBS, someone asked about why he couldn't contribute his own ideas for Star Trek novels, which the pro authors could then pick up on, then write novels on his dream ST topics.

Pro authors are never short of a new idea. Ideas are the easy bit. It's the grunt work of writing (and rewriting) them up in novel form that's so hard. You should see my ideas file!

Eventually, all the really great ideas turn up without any need for me - or anyone - to promote them, because great ideas occur to lots of other ST fans, too. And most of the ST writers are also fans. For example: when I first saw "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in 1979, I visualised the next big ST adventure, featuring TMP's main cast and with all the wonderful new alien UFP races in supporting roles. As a naive, newbie ST fan I even wrote my first fanfic from that angle. Weirdly for me, just weeks after that fanfic ("Hoodwinked") had won a short story competition and was published in a fanzine, along came the pro novel "Black Fire" by Sonni Cooper, set in that TOS-turning-to-TMP era, and which shared no less than thirteen coincidental plot points with my story. But I also knew it was impossible for Sonni to have been inspired by my story: it was all just wacky coincidence.

And, eventually, along came Christopher L Bennett's "Ex Machina". Reading it, even though I hadn't thought of doing a sequel to "For the World is Hollow...", the novel felt so much like the style of post-TMP story I'd always wanted to tell. Christopher even ensured that all the wonderful new alien UFP races of TMP were in supporting roles, and it still feels as if he'd written "Ex Machina" just for me. (Well, apart from what he did with one character, LOL.)

My second fanfic was a prequel (and sequel) to "Space Seed", in which I tried to anticipate events which might occur in the as-yet-unreleased ST II - and my story, "A Model Officer", actually ended years later, with Kyle on the Reliant. Imagine my shock and delight when actor John Winston - as Kyle - turned up on ST II. On Reliant!

Similarly, I once did an interview with Robert Greenberger, the then-Star Trek comics editor at DC Comics, and mentioned how cool a ST novel set on Andor would be: a book that managed to discuss Andorian sexuality, politics, family life, etc, and we laughed about how such a novel would never get approved by the then-Star Trek Office. Years later, along came Heather Jarman's "Andor: Paradigm" in "Worlds of Star trek: Deep Space Nine, Book 1". Again, it was as if she'd written the whole story for me .

But I guess my Andorian enthusiasm paid off anyway, since my Andorian persona gets a cameo mention in both of those recent pro novels, even though I had no idea I'd be acknowledged (until just before each book got published), and I'd never discussed my ideas with either author, nor posted them online. It was mostly just wonderful coincidence - a tapping into the cosmic consciousness, perhaps - and proof, to me, that good ideas will rise to the surface, no matter what.

Inside, looking out; outside, looking in

Above: The view of the elephants. This is the view from the old 1917 elephant enclosure at Taronga Park Zoo, looking out at human passersby.



Above: The new view of the elephants. This is the view into the new elephant enclosure at Taronga, 2007. I swear you could make out these elephants grinning, from ear to ear, from the cabin of our chairlift as we swooped over the zoo yesterday. So much for the animal liberationists who claimed that the new elephants would be cramped, bored and poorly-treated.

As the US-release poster for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" used to say, "There is no comparison."

Do you know the way to ShiKahr?

American television audiences channel flipping for random episodes of original Star Trek (TOS) in syndication are enjoying all-new special effects footage, which is being recreated/repaired/enhanced with CGI in remastered, high definition versions of the episodes. Although current syndication advertisement ratios require extensive cutting of popular lines and (sometimes) whole scenes, there is an intention to release uncut HD DVDs of the "remastered" TOS.

TOS was made on film, not videotape, which means that it looks amazing on HD TV, but the FX made in the 1960s are simply not up to scratch, due to the number of composite film layers required to produce SPFX footage of transporter effects, phaser beams, ship passes and matt paintings. The episodes still look good on regular TVs, but DVD already shows up problems (the joins on Nimoy's pointed ear tips, for one) and HD TV and DVD will show up many more faults, especially in the old SPFX.

While some fans have been angered by any attempt to meddle with a cultural icon - especially the attempts to recreate CGI versions of the Enterprise's rotating nacelle caps, and the artists putting miniature, moving versions of themselves in the new computer-drawn matt paintings - the CBS SPFX team are doing an amazing job, from the still and moving examples I've seen so far.

But last week, CBS unveiled its remastered version of "Amok Time". Suddenly, that well-known scene of Spock and Kirk's battle for T'Pring, Spock's intended bondmate, has been elevated, literally, onto an impossibly precarious land bridge, similar to those seen in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock"! And, in the distance, we can now see a CGI recreation of Spock's home city of ShiKahr, which had previously been named and visited in the Filmation animated episode, "Yesteryear" (TAS).


Left: ShiKahr in TAS; Right: a distant ShiKahr in TOS-R.

While most of Filmation's TAS was shunted out of "canon" via a Star Trek Office memo in 1989, several names and events from "Yesteryear" (plus Captain Robert April of "The Counter-clock Incident") are embraced by the "Star Trek Encyclopedia" and the "Star Trek Chronology", with Gene Roddenberry's approval. Unfortunately, Spock's city of birth is misspelt "ShirKahr" in those publications, and that pesky error has permeated TAS mentions in other licensed Star Trek products.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the moon-like object in the sky over Shikahr in the "Yesteryear" still, that is "T'Kuht", coined in the 70s by fanzine identity, Gordon Carleton, to explain the misleading TOS quote, "Vulcan has no moon, Miss Uhura" (in "The Man Trap"). Jean Lorrah once wrote Sarek & Amanda fanzine stories for T'Kuhtian Press.

The TAS error in "Yesteryear" (ie. Dorothy Fontana had scribbled "remove moon" on the art she approved for Filmation, but it wasn't noticed by the animators) was retconned as "Vulcan's twin planet" in the booklet accompanying View-Master's "Yesteryear" adaptation, "Mr. Spock's Time Trek". The planetary body was also shown to dominate the Vulcan sky in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (TMP) in 1979 (below), although it was eliminated for the director's edition DVD.



Several years later, the planetoid turned up in a Pocket Star Trek novel as T'Kuht in "The Vulcan Academy Murders" (below) by Jean Lorrah, acknowledging Gordon Carleton for the name and explanation. The planetoid is even on the cover of "The Vulcan Academy Murders" (below left) and Michael Jan Friedman's "New Worlds, New Civilizations" (below right).



The name is spelt "T'Khut" in Diane Duane's "Spock's World", Jeri Taylor's "Voyager: Pathways" and the books "The Worlds of the Federation" and "New Worlds, New Civilizations". It's called "T'Rukh" in AC Crispin's novel, "Sarek", with an explanation that the name changes are seasonal. It's T'Kuht again in "The Needs of the One" a DC Comics story in its TOS Special, Series II, and Geoffrey Mandel's book, "Star Trek Star Charts".

With the animated series often considered the bastard child of the Star Trek phenomenon, it's always a thrill to me to see TAS acknowledged. With the new version of "Amok Time", ShiKahr and TAS take a new step towards legitimacy and acceptance!

Uniformity

Over at the TrekBBS, someone asked for the Star Trek fans to name their favourite Star Trek uniform, and I hadn't really felt the need to contribute to that thread - until someone wondered aloud if "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" was going to get any representation. And it helped that I was "taking a break" from yesterday's epic moving of magazines from one pile to another. (Today I'd progressed to "free some action figures from their packaging" to free up more space. But it's okay, I've always been an "opener", not a "MOMC" - "mint on mint card" - collector.)

Okay, back to ST uniforms: well ST:TMP on the big screen was my first really memorable ST experience, after TAS repeats on TV. So, call me biased, but I love the ST: TMP uniforms (even if they do look a little - okay, a lot - like 'jammies). In 1980, if I coulda put one on and leapt into the silver screen of Sydney's old Paramount Theatre and onto that starship, I'd have done so.



Above: From an early fanzine story; art by my penpal, Kamu. Note that I'd asked her to include the Andorian partial exo-skeleton mentioned by the Ballantine "Starfleet Medical Reference Manual".



Above: At the first Medtrek Convention (1982), at the historic Hydro Majestic Hotel, Medlow Bath in the Blue Mountains. Therin was on the debating team: "Federation vs Empire: Which is the Better Form of Government?"



Above: Therin, Arex and M'Ress join the crew after ST: TMP, with a little help from Photoshop.

Andorians old and new - and Spider-man, too

I'm still attempting to do some housework, but I keep finding things with which to play "Show and Tell".

I recently discovered that "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" made its own curious guest appearance in a 1980 issue of Amazing Spider-Man #203. Spider-Man's alter-ego, Peter Parker, and his friends were excited about going to see the premiere of ST:TMP (itself a Marvel cross-promotion at the time, since Marvel was doing the tie-in comic based on ST:TMP). As soon as the Klingon ships began to fire torpedoes, the supervillain du jour sends an energy blast right through the movie screen...

"Amazing Spider-Man" #203, 1980

Cool, eh?

I regularly get to add new Andorians to my Star Trek Rogues' Gallery of Andorians pages, but if they are in novels, there aren't usually any new portraits to share. A few months ago, a Japanese-influenced graphic novel anthology, Star Trek: The Manga: Shinsei Shinsei (2006), included an Andorian (and other aliens), who'd been seemingly assimilated by proto Borg (below, left). The story is "Side Effects" by Chris Dows, illustrated by Makoto Nakatsuka.



An earlier comic - a parody this time by Peter David & Richard Howell and illustrated by John Heebink & Jim Mooney - is Soulsearchers and Company (1995), issue #15. I recently ordered this (previously unknown) title from the amazing online comic seller, Mile High Comics. In "To Boldly Search", David & Howell's regulars end up on a studio set of the fictitious Cosmic Convoy: Venturer, a starship very like the USS Voyager. Many of the actors resemble "Voyager" characters; the captain looks like Kate Mulgrew (as Janeway), but is called Genevieve (as in Bujold). One actress (above, right), whose hair and costume make her resemble Kes the Ocampa, is wearing Andorian antennae.

There's also a new Andorian due in IDW Publishing's Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Space Between #2 (2007). Schwin is an Andorian archeologist colleague of Captain Picard's. I can't wait to preview him here, so please watch this space...

Meanwhile, back to the housework and filing tasks...