Trek Comic Treasure Trove
Being a sci-fi geek and even bigger Star Trek aficionado, I decided to use my end of year bonus (generously given to me by some really great people I used to work with) on pure unadulterated splurging. After getting my spouse a gift, the details of which will remain unpublished as that would ruin a perfectly happy marriage, I decided to buy something nice for myself. Not wanting to spend too much yet wanting a good entertaining Trekkie experience I decided to get this:
Yes, it is what it is. The way I see it, it’s the best of both worlds. I am too tired from work to read through a novel (I know this is blasphemy for a writer such as myself, but hey that’s just how my brain operates) yet don’t have the time to blast my way through a video game (android based gaming these days folks). Thus, I can read short quips along with nice big pictures to go along with said quips; which is the very definition of a modern-day comic, don’t Ya know?
Now, this collection of comics goes back to the solar year 1967. Being the nerd that I am I tackled this reading exercise in the following manner:
All the ST: TOS comics followed by ST: TNG, ST: DS9, and then ST: VOY (sorry enterprise, discovery no soup for you), regardless of the publisher (same to you IDW). The ads have been faithfully reproduced which give you an insight into how American culture used to be. Me personally, being a kid of the 80’s I liked the ads best when I was knee-deep in comics from the age of free love and flower power. Later on, my Spidey sense (R.I.P. Stan Lee) began to tingle as the ads gleefully celebrated a brutal past (decedents of frontiersmen peddling BB guns to little boys or commemorative coins for the Hiroshima, Nagasaki atomic attacks).
Aside from those novelties I also didn’t like the writing of the earlier comics too much. The dialogue is out of character and the references to ST technology is incorrect (they’re not radios!). Plus, the drawings of the characters do not resemble the actors who portray them. It’s hard to determine who is saying what. I only see a blue-eyed blond-haired macho man talking, I didn’t realize that was supposed to be Scotty until much later. This is partly due to the publisher outsourcing their work to Europe in order to meet tight deadlines. Yeah, something was definitely lost in translation.
Also, Gen Xers need to look away, as the comics from the early ’70s were lame. The writing was still spotty at best. Don’t get me wrong there were a few good ones. Which kept me coming back but overall, I found myself dropping out of the reading routine more and more during that decade of comics. The comics from the mid-’70s were a bit better picking up the slack as the artwork was more engaging and the storylines became much more complex. Why didn’t I just skip ahead to the good ones you ask? Well, I am too much of a stickler and prefer to take it on one comic at a time. Plus, my memory engrams would have a major bout of OCD if I skipped a comic!
Luckily as I made my way down through the years the quality definitely improved. I enjoyed the movie adaptions that the comic book people came up with. Of course, my TV viewing suffers because of this. But hey it was worth it. I only dropped out of warp to watch shows like SGU, MythBusters and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. No more flipping channels for me I had to get through literally hundreds of comics. Talk about a man on a mission!
So, what should one drink to accompany this medley of geeky fun? Why water of course. I see too many of my fellow geeks/nerds wasting away their health drinking colas and other sugary sodas. Later on, they complain about not feeling well. Gee, I wonder why that is? Water, especially mineral water is really good for your health. You quench your thirst without having to worry about getting diabetes and or renal failure. Drink it cool or at room temperature, you will enjoy its’ refreshing goodness. My favorite bottlers produce a cheap and inexpensive product, which always beats tap water hands down.
