Year Five #12: The Mission Who Walks Like a Man, part 2 preview

Out this week from IDW is Star Trek Year Five #12, the second half of the Gary Seven story The Mission Who Walks Like a Man. This story resolves the tease from the very first book in the Year Five series, and so acts as something of a mid-series finale (and a very satisfying one too), with another twelve issues still to come to fill out the final year of the USS Enterprise's TV-era five year mission under Kirk.

The book is written by Year Five showrunners Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, with a host of artists contributing: Kieran McKeown is credited for pages 1-11 and 17-20, Silvia Califano for pages 13-16, and Stephen Thompson for page 12. Colours are also a jumble of contributors, with Thomas Deer on pages 1-11, 17-18, and 20, John-Paul Bove for pages 12-16, and 19, and Charlie Kirchoff for page 12. That twelfth page does represent that tease page from the first issue, so that explains some of multitude of credits in this issue!

Following the usual format for the series, the book is available in two covers: Either the main cover, with a menacing shadow of gun pointed at Kirk, by Stephen Thompson, with colour by Charlie Kirchoff. Or there's the retail incentive cover from JJ Lendl, who continues their travel poster series with Circe V, the planet the USS Enterprise escape pods ended up landing on.

Continue below to check out the covers and a five page preview, plus some other comics updates.

A look back at Kevin Francis's semi-lost range of Star Trek toby jugs

I love an obscure bit of Star Trek merchandise, and something that caught my eye in the hunt for such oddities recently is Kevin Francis Ceramics' range of Star Trek toby jugs. Or almost range: While the company worked up designs for at least eleven different TOS and TNG characters, only four ever appear to have made it into production - And all of those were in limited editions of between 350 and 650 a piece, so even they are quite illusive items. Continue below to have a look back at what could have been an ambitious and distinctive Star Trek collection.

Toby jugs, for the unfamiliar, are normally a ceramic mug in the form of a character, traditionally a sitting rotund man with his own mug of ale in hand. They can be practical drinking vessels, but they're more often produced to be novelties and collectors items. A few companies have had a go a some form of character or figural mug in the Star Trek realm before, perhaps most notably Applause, who produced quite a fairly large range of character's heads as mugs. A couple of years before them though (circa 1995), Kevin Francis went down a far more ambitious and artisan path.

You can get a really good sense of what they were creating in one of the designs they did manage to get to market, the Borg drone toby mug - As you can see, he's barely a mug at all! This tall standing character casts aside the typical constrains and practicalities of the toby mug format to focus on delivering an impressive ceramic sculpture. Setting this apart from your usual figurine though, at the back of this character you find a Borg Cube streaking through space; this is the handle. A hole at the top of the head allows liquid to be poured in and drunk out from, and so this is still a functional mug (if maybe slightly difficultly so).

Picard behind the scenes: Alien make-up and prosthetics round-up

I've gathered up some of the latest Picard behind the scenes images and info I've come across in relation to the design and creation of the many aliens of the series. There are familiar species and characters here, plus some much more exotic creations. Continue below to check them out.

First up a glimpse at the recreation of one of my favourite Star Trek species, the Andorians. Sculptor Nicholas Rinehard shared these images of their work on the latest iteration of the Andorian antenna. They used a random head cast for the purposes of sculpting, so don't expect to spot this exact Andorian on-screen:

Vannen launch USS Enterprise artist watches

Watch makers Vannen have entered the world of Star Trek with two new watches inspired by the USS Enterprise and designed by artist Tom Whalen. Available now, the USS Enterprise watch is offered in grey or white variants, with just 200 being produced of each. Continue below to check them out, and find out how they were made:

Review: Science Division's Interactive Tribble

Science Division's Interactive Tribbles have started to find their way out into the world, and one of them has found it's way to me to have a play with. It's proved to be no trouble at all, but plenty of fun. Continue below for my thoughts on the deluxe ball of fluff.

While there have been many tribbles produced over the years, at various sizes and colours (and as a tribble lover I have a few myself!), but there's never been one like this. Some have featured sounds and vibration features before, but always requiring a squeeze to make them go - This one is almost alive! Tucked inside is a little box of tricks that makes the tribble coo (or scream), vibrate, sense when it's touched, and links it up with features enables by a mobile app - Although many of the things the tribble can do can be controlled without an app (see below).

Get into uniform with the latest Star Trek face-masks

The Star Trek Shop has expanded its range of Star Trek face-masks with seven new designs joining the collection, based on TOS, TNG, and Discovery; these join the previous TOS and Picard options. Most of these fill an obvious costuming opportunity, taking inspiration from a variety of Starfleet uniforms. There's also a Star Trek pride design.

As was the case with the previous designs, ViacomCBS are donating all the profits from the sale of these to Feeding America's COVID-19 Response. Continue below to check out all the options:

TNG and Discovery uniforms are both represented by one design each, both command division:

TNG crew frustration continues with Commander Riker facepalming bust

It's a tough year, in recognition of this Icon Heroes have turned their facepalming busts into a series, with Commander Riker now joining Captain Picard (who himself just recently had a third edition release announced).

The new Commander Riker facepalming bust, based on a moment from the episode A Matter of Perspective, is 7.9 inches tall, and a limited edition of 1701. Made from polystone, and hand painted, this is officially not just a bust, but also a paperweight. It is also officially a San Diego Comic Con exclusive, but of course there is no SDCC this Covid infected year, so you'll just have to get one via Icon Heroes' website.

2021 Star Trek calendar previews

The Star Trek calendars for 2021 are starting to arrive already, and so the publishers have been putting out new previews to help us decide which one to choose. There's no shortage of options this year, with six designs for the US market, two for the UK, and two in Germany as well! Continue below to check them out.

My calendar of choice is the Ships of the Line starship art calendar, and this year looks like another spectacular entry in this long running series:

Lower Decks preview images, and other Trek TV updates

At last some new previews of Lower Decks have hit the net today. Continue below to check them out, plus updates from the rest of on-screen Trek:

Entertainment Weekly have released two shiny new stills from Lower Decks, along with an interview with the creator, Mike McMahan, all helping paint a picture of what this new animated comedy series will be like. Behold, our heroes (Beckett Mariner, Tendi, Rutherford, and Brad Boimler) , seemingly in a more relaxed moment:

Note (on the right) Boimler's shoes; the Starfleet branding department seem to have gone all out on that colourful footwear, with Starfleet deltas on the soles!

Unique silver USS Enterprise from Rawcliffe's old miniatures line departs spacedock

Check out this shiny little beauty. This is a solid silver model of the USS Enterprise (aside from some small solid gold details), made by sculptor Mark Eliot Schwabe, based on the sculpting he created for Rawcliffe's old Star Trek pewter model starship range.