Interview: Rich Handley on the Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection

Rich Handley might be a name familiar to you if you're a fan of Star Trek comics. His famously complete collection made him a key figure in bringing back into print the almost-lost Star Trek comic strips from the US and UK. More recently he's been working with Eaglemoss on their Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection; initially writing introductions for many of the books, and now as editor of the series. We had a chat recently to discuss his work on the collection, and the hope it might be able to continue long enough to get to reprint every Star Trek comic. Continue below to find out more.

So to kick off, I know you've been involved in Star Trek comics as a collector and professionally for a long time. Can you fill us in on how you ended up in charge of the Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection? And what it's been like getting to play with all the Star Trek comic toys as a result?

I'll paraphrase Commander Kor by saying it's been glorious.

My involvement with the Eaglemoss books goes back to shortly after the Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection was first announced—but my love of Star Trek comics goes back to 1984, when I was 16 years old. I'd been a Trek fan since pretty much my toddler days, as I was born in 1968 and my mother was a first-generation fan who'd watched the show all the time while I was growing up. Although I can't say one-year-old me was a fan (one-year-old me was too busy drooling on myself, sucking my thumb and figuring out how to say words more complicated than "mama" and "dada"), I was present in the room, sitting in my playpen, while my mom watched the final season in its first run. So I can truthfully say the franchise has been in my life since the beginning.

By age 16, I'd watched each episode countless times and I'd read each novel as it came out. But teenage me craved more. One day, as I was walking through a bookstore in my home town of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., a comic book cover caught my eye: issue #9 of DC's first Star Trek run. It announced "New Frontiers" on the cover, which piqued my curiosity, and the artwork was striking. I'd never been a comics reader before that point, other than perusing my cousins' funny books when I was a child of the '70s—Little Lulu, Archie, Fox and Hound, that sort of thing—so despite my love of the Trek franchise, the comics had largely been off my radar until I'd spotted that cover. I decided "Why the hell not?" and took it home, figuring that if I didn't enjoy it, I'd only be out 75 cents (comics were a lot cheaper back then). As it turned out, that wasn't a problem.

I soon began looking up local comic shops to find the first eight issues. That was easy, as they were all current. Then I went nuts tracking down the Marvel and Gold Key stories that had preceded DC's line, but this proved more challenging—still, I found them all. I've been collecting Trek comics ever since and have amassed every issue to date, including rare items fans might not know about. This culminated in my befriending Mark Martinez (proprietor of the Star Trek Comics Checklist), creating my own resource (The Complete Star Trek Comics Index), and eventually writing for Star Trek Communicator magazine back in the day, and later contributing to several unofficial Star Trek books offered by Sequart and ATB Publishing.

A few years back, I worked on five Star Trek hardcover books for IDW's Library of American Comics (LOAC) imprint, which reprinted all of the U.S. and U.K. Star Trek comic strips. The strips were scanned from my personal collection (you can imagine how tough it was to complete the full set of those stories in the pre-Internet days), and I wrote the supplementary materials for each volume. That was an amazing experience; working on an official Trek comic has always been number-one on my writing bucket list. Back when WildStorm had the license, editor Jeff Mariotte had invited me to write a tale for the Star Trek Special, but alas, since the company was about to lose the license, the budget was cut and I ended up being cut, too, since I'd been the last writer brought onboard. So joining the Trek comics fold with the LOAC books was extremely gratifying—and it opened up a door for me when Eaglemoss later obtained its license.

Interview: Science Division's interactive tribbles

Last year Science Division promised to bring the world life-like interactive tribbles; using sound, motion, and even a mobile app to bring their fluffy friends (with bespoke extra soft fur) to life.

Despite the complications of the Covid-19 crisis, they have just finished shipping out there initial pre-orders, and are now fully open for business for all your ongoing tribble needs.

Science Division is the creation of Kayleigha and Jay, a wife and husband team whose love for Trek and desire for a realistic tribble pet lead to learn coding, found a company, work out manufacturing, and find their way to being officially licensed by CBS - An impressive feat and real show Trek-love. I had a chat with Kayleigha about how mission-tribble is going:

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Kayleigha amongst the tribble hoards.

I have this vision of your home being something like the tribble-filled scenes of every tribble episode... Have you been able to keep your tribble hoard under control?

During the development process we joked that the Tribbles were multiplying digitally more than anything else. I (Kayleigha) do all of the graphic design and social media for the business. We’re now onto our second external hard drive of Tribble photos, videos, and business documents. That being said, now that our stock has arrived, we do have a room full of Tribbles. Sadly, they are all boxed up to keep them safe. I did take the opportunity to bury myself in prototype Tribbles, though. I couldn’t resist. 

Interview: Mark Brayer, starship artist

Bye Bye Robot recently released five new Star Trek art prints, and have been kind enough to put me in touch with all the artists to explore their work. This time I'm talking to Bye Bye Robot regular Mark Brayer. Mark's piece in the latest releases is based on The Galileo Seven, and continues his series of TOS posters, which have now featured four different ships from the series. Mark talked me through all his designs, and how he makes them (continues after the jump):


You’ve established a really strong series, that seems to simultaneously echo classic sci-fi book covers, and have some sort of technical drawing feel. Could you tell us about how you decided on the look for the series, and your influences?

I appreciate the compliments on my work, I have always loved the great sci-fi and fantasy art of the 70s and 80s, and the artists who created them. As you mentioned, Lou Feck, but also Bob Peak, Ralph McQuarrie, and others. Their work graced the front of TV guides, posters, books, and other media, and was a big influence for me. Today, there is some masterful work being created with computers, but I love the look and feel of hand drawn/painted work.

Mark's 3D model of the Galileo

And how do you go about creating your work? What is your medium, and how do you build up the images?

For my Star Trek posters, I use many different types of media from traditional to digital. When designing a poster idea, I always start with pencil sketches. For this series, the ships were always the center of attention, so I would always try to create a layout that featured the most dynamic view of that particular ship. When I have established a layout I like, I do a more finished drawing with pencil and ink. When the poster design is approved, I can begin by building a basic 3D model in Sketch-Up. This allows me to get an accurate and proportional angle of the ship and not spend all of my time with technical things while I am illustrating. This gives me a guide to work with and then when I begin creating the art of the ship, I can manipulate and add things, and be creative knowing that the basic structure is sound. After the base drawing is done, I render it with a combination of some flat color via photoshop, and then I print it out onto a color tinted piece of paper, and then do most of the rest of the final rendering with colored pencil, pastel, ink and paint. After the coloring is done, I hi-res scan it into the computer and add the final text and color adjustments.

Interview: Kevin Hopkins on Voyager art

Bye Bye Robot have recently released five new Star Trek art posters, featuring subjects from all five of the prime series. Bye Bye Robot's Charity Wood was kind enough to put me in touch with all the artists involved, so we can talk about their new creations.

First up is Kevin Hopkins, who had the honour of producing the first ever Voyager design in Bye Bye Robot's collection, The Long Way Home. Here's what Kevin told me (continues after the jump):

So your first piece with Bye Bye Robot features the USS Voyager, what drew you to this particular subject?

I have been a science fiction fan from the time I first started reading. When Star Trek emerged it quickly became a large part of that interest and I am happy doing anything related to that subject. Voyager is especially interesting in the ship design and through my familiarity with the series.

I tend to consider myself an organic artist, doing my best work with anatomy and living things rather than machines. The organic design of the Voyager ship seemed a good fit even though it is technically a machine. The Voyager ship is really a stand-alone beautiful object and I find its form very appealing and attractive.

Did you know when you decided on Voyager that it would be the first image from that series from Bye Bye Robot?

Yes, I was aware that this was the first artistic rendering of the Voyager ship that Bye Bye Robot had commissioned. I did not know that it was the only image they had from the ‘Voyager’ series. It’s always nice to step into a new area and see what happens there and maybe supply the fans with something they’ve been missing out on.

Interview: Rob Caswell on the art of Seekers

Out now are the first two books in the new novel series, Seekers. The books are written by the same team that brought us Vanguard (and indeed it follows on from that series), with novels alternating between David Mack, and Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore. But now there's another member of the creative team, Rob Caswell, the artist that inspired the series with his brilliant fan art book cover designs, and is now creating real covers for the published books. Rob spoke to me about his work on the new series (interview continues after the jump):

The original and Caswell version of Blish's Star Trek 6

So Rob, you inspired an original Star Trek book series, that's quite something! For those not familiar, can you remind us how you got from Blish-book homages to the books on our shelves today?

I guess the condensed version of the story goes like this. As a personal project I decided to create new book covers for all twelve of the original James Blish “novelizations”, updating the imagery with details of what we were then seeing in the “remastered” version of TOS, which was airing at the time. I had so much fun with that I wanted to do more, so I created a fictional Star Trek spin off TV series – The Seekers – and popped out about five well-weathered covers, posting the results on my Deviant Art site.

Years passed and I was unaware that, behind the scenes, the writing team who handled the monumental “Vanguard” TOS novel series was looking for some new direction to take their work. They ran across my Seekers treatments and got excited with the idea of making this series idea become real, using me as the cover artist and keeping my ‘70’s Blish cover graphics treatments. To “Trekkies of a certain age” those big, bold book numbers below the Star Trek name hits a nostalgic sweet spot.

So that’s how I got pulled in – ye olde cycle of inspiration. It’s a testament to how the internet has changed our creative pursuits. Twenty years ago I may have done these images and just stuck ‘em in a drawer where no one else would ever see them. The internet offers all kinds of new ways for creative people to share their work and inspire one another.

Two of Rob's covers for the imagined series, The Seekers:

Interview: Starships Collection's Ben Robinson on year one and beyond

A year of The Official Starships Collection ships

A year ago today the first issue of Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection hit the shelves in the UK. The series has evidently been quite the success, as it has been recently announced it will be continuing beyond its original plan of seventy issues up to at least ninety - Meaning we can expect fortnightly model starships until early 2017!

To look back at the first year of the collection, and ahead to things to come, I am delighted that the series' manager, Ben Robinson agreed to talk with me about his work on the model ship and magazine collection. The interview continues after the jump:

The Star Trek Fact Files ran for 304 issues!

You’ve got quite a long history working in Star Trek, so I thought perhaps we should start by exploring how you wound your way to the Starships Collection, back from the Fact Files days?

It's a very long story. I got the job on the Fact Files when I responded to a newspaper ad. I was already working in publishing and Star Trek was both my hobby and my passion. Back then, no-one knew how long the Fact Files would run. It's success was about an absolute phenomenon. After about a year, the company I was working for decided to try to take it to the US. That meant doing it in a different format, so we launched a US magazine that combined the Fact Files with new behind the scenes material. I was responsible for that and in many ways it was a dream come true. My job was to find out and write about Star Trek. I could literally choose who to interview myself, and they almost always said yes. The magazine ran for four years and I got to talk to almost everyone I wanted to. I made a lot of contacts and collected a lot of material, often tracking down the stuff that no-one had seen before. I still have a pretty hefty archive and I'm very happy to say that a lot of the people I interviewed became friends so if we're working on something I can dash off an email and there's a good chance someone will come back to me.

After the magazine came to an end I carried on working for the publisher, mostly on 'genre' products. I launched a couple of very successful collections - we've done three Doctor Who ones - Battles in Time trading cards, which were a big deal, a DVD collection and now the figurine collection, which I love just as much as Star Trek. I did a James Bond car collection, some DVD collections, TMNT and Transformers collections for Russia. A couple of years ago, the company got bought out by Eaglemoss and I got to add Marvel and DC comics stuff to my CV. We're doing Marvel and DC Chess sets and the Marvel Fact Files. We're pretty busy!

Issue one, a year old today.

So The Collection has been running for a whole year now, but you must have been at work on it for some time before then. Could you take us through the inception of the series? How you settled on the scale of the models, the format for the magazine (part in-universe, part behind-the-scenes), and the running order and balance of different ships?

Is it only a year?! It's being a lot longer than that for me. After the success of the Fact Files we were always looking for another Trek product. Ships seemed like a natural idea, particularly as we'd had so much success with the James Bond cars. I had a few rules: there couldn't be any holes in the ships, they had to be as accurate and as well painted as possible, and they had to be a pleasing size that you could actually get in your home. I know a lot of people wish they were in scale with one another, but I don't think many people have thought through the implications of that. If you keep the NX-01 at the size it is, then the E should be over 2-feet long. There's no way we could do them all for the same price if we did that and there's no way you'd get a Voth city ship through your letterbox.

For the magazine, I knew from the Fact Files that people have a great interest in in-universe stuff. I also knew there's lots of interesting material out there about the filming models and the design process and that's not something I, personally, can ever get enough of. I love my Art of Star Trek book but I was always very frustrated that there was no explanation about what I was looking at.

The running order is interesting. I've learned a bit as we've gone along. The point of the collection was always to give people things that they hadn't been able to get before. I think you want to make it clear from the beginning that this isn't just a collection that has the Enterprises and a Klingon Bird-of-Prey. So I tried to make it clear that it would be varied from the word go so people understood what they'd be signing up for. As we've progressed, it's become clear that people are passionate about Federation ships, so I try to make sure we never go long without a Fed ship, even if it's something fairly obscure such as the Norway class.

Painting starships, with Bye Bye Robot's Charity Wood

Bye Bye Robot recently released their first ever Star Trek: Enterprise print, and the artist, Bye Bye Robot's co-founder, Charity Wood, was kind enough to tell me all about it, and share a look behind the scenes:

Before you tell me about your latest piece, could you tell me a bit about you as an artist, and Bye Bye Robot. How did you came to create the world of Star Trek art the robot brings us?

I'd be happy to. I'm one of those people who picked up pencils and paint-brushes as (little more than) a toddler and then never put them down again. I've been making art as long as I can remember, so when it came time to choose school and career, art was the obvious choice. I've also been a sci-fi fan as long as I can remember, and as soon as Star Trek: The Next Generation hit the small screen, I was hooked. Fast forward to some years later, after working in several art fields and absorbing as much Star Trek as I possibly could, I realized that I wanted to have Star Trek art on my walls but couldn't find what I was looking for. The natural thing for me to do seemed to be...create Star Trek art for myself. So, that's what I did. My first Star Trek painting was the painting named "NCC-1701" and I just kept going from there. After I began receiving complements from friends I started to think that maybe others would enjoy these paintings too, and kaboom! Bye Bye, Robot was born! It took a bit of time, working through the legal side of things with CBS, but finally we made it and launched the shop. We ramped up our artwork offerings slowly so we could grow organically with the business, and now we work with almost a dozen artists, and are adding new art prints on a regular basis. Our next step, on the horizon, will be to branch out and begin incorporating more genres and licenses to our gallery.

Your latest piece features the NX-01, and is Bye Bye Robot's first Enterprise-inspired design. How did you go about bringing this one to life? Were there any particular challenges, or things you enjoyed, about depicting the first starship Enterprise?

Since painting "NCC-1701" and "Boldly Go" it's always been my intention to continue my ship series adding many more well known Star Trek ships to the roster. The Enterprise NX-01 was always on the list, but when we saw that Scott Bakula was going to be attending the Austin Comic Con last month (which happened to be right in our neck of the woods) I got giddily inspired and began focusing on that one, in particular. I pretty much worked on it non-stop till it was finished, and got it done just in time to bring its prints with us to that convention. Yay!

You ask about the challenges and enjoyment of painting my first Enterpise focused piece. The answer to both sides of that coin is the same...detail. Huge amounts of detail! I never realized how detailed that ship was compared to the "later" versions of her. The NX-01 has so many tiny parts and hull plates. There are so many seams and outlines that I needed to keep clear. Oh...that's another thing...my style. I'll give you the short version. I begin my paintings on a black canvas, so the outlines that you see are unlike "typical" outlines that are put on lastly over top of an image. My "outlines" are actually unpainted areas that have to remain totally unpainted during the entire process, so that the black canvas shows through. You can think of it as a kind of reverse painting. So, knowing that, painting something with a lot of detail...and a lot of lines...takes quite a bit longer than not. The detail in the NX-01 was both challenging and zen-like. I found that when I wasn't cursing my hand for making a near miss of a stroke, I was fully absorbed in the work and completely unaware of my surroundings. I found that balance of emotions quite enjoyable. In fact, the overall experience of concentrating on that amount of detail has influenced my next choice of subjects. I will be tackling intricate detain again in the near future.

Charity also sent me a couple of behind the scenes photos, showing how her NX-01 came together. So here's how that "reverse painting" works. Doesn't the ship look nice in black!

Continue after the jump for more from Charity, discussing some of her other pieces, and plans for the future:

Alan Gratz on The Assassination Game

Out this week is The Assassination Game, the fourth book in Simon Spotlight's new timeline Starfleet Academy series. A year since the last book in the series, fans of the new timeline must be itching to read the new book from first time Star Trek writer Alan Gratz, who has kindly agreed to tell me a bit about the book and how he came to write it:

The Assassination Game is the fourth book in the new Starfleet Academy series. Where does it fit into the timeline of our heroes education at the academy, and what is the book about?

The Assassination Game is about a series of terrorist events on the Starfleet Headquarters/Starfleet Academy campuses, either caused by, or in reaction to, the arrival of the Varkolak, an antagonistic alien species I invented for the book. Meanwhile, Kirk and Bones are participating in an underground student event called The Assassination Game, which sees cadets trying to "kill" each other by catching each other alone and tapping each other with a cafeteria spork. The two storylines cross, naturally, culminating in a rousing climax with a spork. :-) As to when this occurs, I was less specific about that. Let's just say it's not the characters' first year at the academy, nor their last--assuming they were there for a year or two before the events of Star Trek XI. That was one of the tricky things about writing this book, of course: trying to fit it in with what we know--and don't know--about the new alternate timeline continuity.

ThinkGeek's spork back in Trek lit!

The use of a spork wasn't inspired by Think Geek's real Starfleet styled spork was it? That will be the second literary reference to that particular quirky Trek product if so!

It was, in fact, a deliberate reference! ThinkGeek saw that in the description, and e-mailed me to see if that's why I had done it. I admitted I had, and they were so pleased they said they're going to order some to carry on the web site.

My wife bought me one of the engraved Starfleet Academy sporks from ThinkGeek to celebrate the publication of the novel.

This is your first Star Trek story, but you're an established writer of young adult and childrens' books. How did you find yourself writing a Star Trek book?

So, funny story: My dream was always to become a professional author, and I studied writing as an undergrad and a graduate student. I was also a longtime Trek fan, and enjoyed reading Star Trek novels. (Particularly Peter David's.) It wasn't long before I put my two passions together and tried to write a Star Trek novel. I wrote a story about Worf, while still an officer on the Enterprise, being sent to the Gamma Quadrant to bring back a rogue Vulcan anthropologist, ala Marlow going after Kurtz in Heart of Darkness. But Pocket Books wouldn't look at your Star Trek book unless you were agented, and no agent I approached wanted to take on a writer with a novel that could only be sold one place. (And probably for not very much money.) So my then-girlfriend (now wife) and I got an idea: she would open shop as a literary agent and submit my Star Trek novel as my agent! We printed up agency letterhead and everything.

Off the submission went, and...we heard nothing. Of course, a real agent would have called to poke them, but Wendi wasn't a real agent, and we didn't know any better. Months and months went by, with no response whatsoever, and we let it go. I was moving on to writing books for young readers by that time anyway, and though I still dreamed of writing for Star Trek, that vision was quickly disappearing in the rear view mirror. Cut to a year and a half later, and Wendi and I are hanging out at her house when, lo and behold, an editor from Pocket Books calls. Stunning! It turns out the submission had been overlooked in some way (I suspect someone used it to prop up a wobbly table) and they had just found it. The editor liked the writing, particularly the humor, but I had made Worf stop over at DS9, and unplanned crossovers were deal killers for the books. I'm not sure why it was never asked if I could just resubmit if I took that part out; perhaps it was because I had moved on. For whatever reason, my brush with Star Trek publication had passed me by.

Or so I thought. I subscribe to a Simon & Schuster e-newsletter that alerts me to new Trek books, and in late 2010 I saw they were introducing a young adult Star Trek series, set at the Academy. Young adult! Star Trek! My current work and my old passion were connected! I immediately got on the phone with my agent (a real one this time, not my wife) and asked him to find out how I could write for this series. He's of the geek tribe as well, and he jumped on the case. Within the week, he had put me contact with the editor on the series, and within a month I had submitted an idea that was approved. I was going to write a Star Trek novel! And it was all because I had now what I had lacked back when I subbed my TNG novel: a real agent. (That and five published books under my belt.)

I suppose you could say I've come full circle--though I hope its an ever-widening circle.

Book four in the Starfleet Academy series was first listed for publication more than a year ago, and has been pushed back several times, and changed listed authors, until eventually seeing light now. I understand this is at least partly down to the intricate approvals tie-ins to the new Star Trek timeline have to go through, via both CBS and Bad Robot. What was that process like for you as the author? Was there much you had to change?

I was hired to write this novel at the end of 2010, with an expected publication date, I was told, of September 2011. Not much time to write a book! But I knew the world and the characters very well, and I was enthusiastic. I also had a nice gap in the non-Trek projects I was already working on, so I could do it. I banged out an outline, which had to be approved, and waited. And waited. And waited. The problem wasn't the publisher, it was the film production company, JJ Abrams' Bad Robot. Every time something had to go through them for approval--which was everything--it took far longer than anticipated. To be fair, their real business is making movies and TV shows, not reading through Starfleet Academy tie-in novels. But those delays torpedoed the original on-sale date.

Writing a novel set in a universe that is, even as you write your story, changing and evolving, is a tricky business. I would put something into the book (a race, a Trek institution, a ship), and word would come back that Bad Robot wanted that part out in case they decided to use it later. This book also had to exist in a particular moment in this evolving timeline. In the movie, Kirk and Spock only truly meet one another during the confrontation over the Kobayashi Maru test at the Academy. Right after that, they launch into space to battle Nero. But this whole series takes place BEFORE those events. So here I am writing a story with one of the best duos ever created--Kirk and Spock--and I can't ever put them in a scene together! At one point, I had a jokey moment where one of them passes the other in the hall and asks who the other was, but I had to take it out. Kirk and Spock must never meet each other in these books. Period.

I understood the reason for all the rules and stipulations put on the novel. In fact, I kind of enjoyed them. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. But because the book took place in a current continuity AND had like 40 years of prior backstory to reckon with, it had to go through three separate steps at every stage: first, through my editor at S&S, then through the Star Trek major domo at CBS/Paramount, and finally through the folks at Bad Robot. That's a lot of cooks! I'm happy to say that all those cooks didn't spoil my broth, however. Though I had to make changes along the way, the story and dialogue are all my own, and I'm very proud of the whole book.

A familiar scene, but the tables will be turned

You're also one of just a handful of authors so far to have written the new timeline versions of the TOS characters. What sort of experience did you have thinking about these as both new and familiar characters?

I knew the Original Series versions of these characters very well, of course. I owned a copy of Star Trek XI too, and I watched it a few times in succession before working on this novel to get the new characterizations down. That said, I wanted to pull in as much of TOS and its characterizations as I could. If you read The Assassination Game, you'll find: a parallel to the dressing-down Kirk gives his crew in "The Trouble With Tribbles," only in reverse; the origins of the Corbomite Maneuver; and some explanation as to why Kirk wants to punch a guy named Finnegan in the face in the original series episode "Shore Leave," among other TOS nods. As to the new movie, I was particularly intrigued by the relationship between Spock and Uhura, so I explored that more in my book. I also got to introduce Sulu to the book series! I was pretty stoked about that, as Sulu is one of my favorite characters from TOS. In every case, I tried to imagine I really was writing for the same old characters in a new, alternate timeline: how would the events of Star Trek XI have changed them from what we already knew? And in what ways would they still be the same? It was a fun challenge.

The Starfleet Academy books preceding your own have featured a few familiar faces, including something rather Borg like, and the Romulans native to the timeline (who have subsequently also appeared in the ongoing comics series). Did you get to work in any familiar Star Trek friends or foes in your book?

I tried. There is a secret society at Starfleet Academy in my book, and originally they were called "The 31." This wasn't an origin story, as ENT already established Section 31 was around pre-Kirk. But my idea was that Section 31 had begun as a secret society at school, and since grown into something more widespread. For whatever reason, I was asked to separate my secret society from that one, and so the name changed. In my heart, it's still Section 31. Like the other authors in the series, I had wanted to take what is now a key, canon Trek institution and work it into this new timeline in a novel way, but it was cut out in the editorial process.

Gratz knows his baseball, but it didn't make the cut this time

I see several of your previous books have been based on baseball, which is of course a familiar game in the Trekverse, did you manage to sneak in any references to the game?

Ha. You know, I don't think there's a single baseball reference in this book! I do get a mention of Parrises Squares in there, and Kirk and an alien play a game of Velocity, which I borrowed from VOY. I should have put baseball in there somehow. I still play on a weekly Star Trek sim, and part of my character's backstory is that he was the third baseman on the Starfleet Academy baseball team, which I dubbed "The Starfleet Redshirts." (An homage to the Red Sox, and, of course, to everyone's favorite fall guys.) I also think "The Deep Space Nine" is an awfully funny old-schoolish name for a Star Trek baseball team.

Starfleet Academy's Alan Gratz

And finally, what's next for you? Do you hope to revisit the Star Trek universe, and if so would you be hoping to stick with the young adult books, or maybe dabble in the adult prose too? Or maybe something in the prime timeline?

Next up is the radically different Prisoner B-3087, a novel based on the true story of a man who, as a boy, survived ten different Nazi concentration camps. I'm not sure I could have done two more dissimilar books in subject or tone. That comes out in spring 2013. I don't have any plans right now to write another Star Trek novel, but that's not for lack of wanting to. I'd love to write another YA Trek novel in this universe, or write an adult novel in the on-going Trek continuity. DS9 is my favorite of the shows; if I had my pick, that's what I would write. If you'd pass the word along to the editors on the adult side, I'd appreciate it...

Thanks to Alan! I'm waiting for my own copy of the new book to arrive! You can find out more about Alan's books on his website, and find a list of the Starfleet Academy series so far, here. Screencaps above via the ever useful TrekCore.

Blish, remastered

Last week I came across the work of Rob Caswell, on his deviantART page, where he is known as Arcass. Rob is an illustrator based in New England, who since the mid-eighties he has worked in many creative fields including printed role playing games, computer games, web design, and comics. That work even includes working on FASA's Star Trek: The Next Generation - Officer's Manual. But what caught my eye was a beautiful series, reimaging the covers of Bantam Books' TOS adaptations by James Blish, with new cover art inspired by the TOS-remastered episodes. Rob has kindly allowed me to share some of those covers with you, and also told me a little about his work:

Could you tell us a bit about the project; how and why you started it?

Well… I sure wish I had some sophomoric tale of how this image series came to be, but honestly it was all an accident… albeit a happy one. My 3D application of choice is DAZ Studio and for a long time I’d been looking for a good Doomsday Machine model that could be used by the program. I finally located one made by Raul Mamoru (via trekmeshes.ch). He seemed to use the “Remastered” version of the device as his design inspiration.

So with a Doomsday Machine model in hand, I started playing with it and creating a number of related images. Perhaps too many images, I began thinking. I sometimes can get obsessed with one subject, looking to make that perfect image, so I keep doing variations on the theme. I started to think my online audience at Deviant Art was starting to get tired of my Doomsday Machine picture parade, so I made the pledge that “this will be my last Doomsday Machine image – at least for a while”.

And then I made one more.

Not wanting to go back on my pledge, I didn’t want to just post this image as a straight up illustration. Looking at the picture I could see the potential for a book cover format and the idea sprang to mind: present the piece as a “Remastered” edition of the classic Blish Trek novelizations. Then it wouldn't be "just another Doomsday Machine image"... it'd be a "book cover'! And with that, the first step on the path was taken.

Once that I publicly showed the work, it proved very popular – and I really enjoyed doing it. But the Doomsday Machine appeared in Blish’s third volume, so I felt like I should at least fill in the blanks back to the first novelization. So I took on covers for numbers 2 and 1. I was still having a lot of fun with it and my online audience was getting petty excited, so I just dove in and took on the rest of the series.

It’s funny how quickly a project like that can materialize when one is energized. I think the whole project took just over a week and by the end I was smiling and barely breaking a sweat. It was very much a labor of decades-long-Trek-love.

What has influenced the designs you came up with?

Good question. I think my ideal for these was shaped by a few factors. My initial idea was simple: to create the kind of covers that I would have gone nuts for as a teenager in the 70’s when I first read these books. I used to study the old covers a lot but with few exceptions the cover painting had nothing to do with the stories in a given volume. So I wanted to make the images relevant. Each one is a subject based on a story within.

I wanted to try to pull on some of the “Remastered” imagery, if only because some of the new material lends more of sense of depth to the Star Trek universe, making it feel “lived in”. But I also wanted to try and show something new and not just recreate an episode’s FX shots. So in a way it’s like stills from a “Remastered FX outtake reel”.

Color was another factor I considered. I kept thinking about how these would all look lined up on a shelf together and tried to vary the colors and compositions to allow the covers to start apart from each other while still carrying a series family resemblance.

And last but not hardly the least, the subjects were driven by the available 3D mesh models, crafted and shared by some hugely talented fans. Chief among these is Aggi’s beautiful TOS Enterprise and many other supporting models by David Metlesits (metlesitsfleetyards.deviantart.com).

Do you have a particular favourite in the series?

Right now I’d say “3,4, and 9”, but if you ask me next week I may change my mind.

Thinking back to the original covers, or the later reprints, are there any in particular of those you like, or that inspired you?

I think all the (US) original covers inspired me, as a collective whole. While my works are a bit more crisp and accurate, I really enjoy the feel on those old covers and their loose, colorful, semi-abstract designs. They are both a product of their time, but also kind of timeless… which is how I feel about most TOS episodes, too.

I noticed you’ve also done a cover for the TOS novel The Abode of Life, might there be any more Trek covers up your sleeve?

They’re really fun for me to do, so I’d be surprised if I didn’t do another one, or two… or three. I have nothing specific planned, at the moment, but if you keep an eye on my Deviant Art page something may pop up when least expected.

Finally, you’ve done lots of other work, Trek and otherwise, some even with your own written narratives. Which of your projects and subjects are you particularly pleased with, and what’s coming next?

In the past I’ve worked at this as a full or part time professional, like back when I did a huge number of illustrations for FASA’s “Star Trek TNG Oficer’s Manual”. But now I’m doing this mostly for fun – just to help relax after a day at the job.

It’s hard for me to pick favorites. Once I’ve completed something, my mind is already running onto the next idea like an ADD puppy in a squirrel preserve. But this Blish homage series is certainly an easy pick for me. It was almost effortless and I still enjoy reviewing the results.

As for what’s next, I have no big plans at the moment… aside from following that puppy and see what he starts chasing next.

You can find much more of Rob's work on his deviantART page, including the rest of the Blish covers, lots of Trek stuff, from TOS, TAS, and the 24th century, and all manner of other art. If you're curious about the original covers that inspired the project, check out my companion article on the 8of5 Archives, which showcases all the original Bantam covers.

Finally, thanks again to Rob for allowing me to share his work.