1980 "Crazy" ST:TMP Spoof

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From out of the collection cabinets this time, comes issue #60 of "Crazy" magazine, which occupied about the third rung down on the humor magazine ladder, under "Mad" and "Cracked." Published in March 1980, the spoof artist Kent Gamble makes no effort to have the costumes or anything else align with the new movie, simply copying everything from the TV show in somewhat sloppy artwork. He imitates very closely the style of Mad's Mort Drucker, which redeems it somewhat; even if entire faces and poses seem copied from earlier Drucker Trek spoofs. Gamble was probably cheaper and more affordable for this low-rent magazine. The cover, however, is done by genre fan favorite Bob Larkin, who always nails the costumes and characters. At least they didn't skimp on that.

The midget-sized Sulu is a hoot, but Decker gets omitted entirely for some reason. Also, it seems that the depiction of the ship inspired the design of the new one in the '09 film; one I've often said seemed based on an 8-year-old's drawing from memory of the Enterprise.

1975 Leonard Nimoy interview

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Above is the awesome Gray Morrow painted cover to "Monsters of the Movies" Annual #1, published in August of 1975. (The nostalgic story of what I went through to get it can be found in an earlier post on another of my blogs, here.) This was an incredible find for me at the time, and seeing it today brings back a lot of memories of those days. Enjoy!

Ralph's Romulans

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We feature this time the awesome artwork of Ralph Fowler, featured on the covers of "Enterprise Incidents." Artist extraordinaire Ralph Fowler was a regular contributor to the terrific fanzine "Enterprise Incidents." Issue #6, above, was published September, 1978 by the prolific James Van Hise. Full of photos, artwork, articles, fan fiction and more, this lovingly produced publication almost seemed a companion magazine to "Trek: The Magazine For Star Trek Fans," which preceded it by a year or so. Although seemingly inspired by "Trek's" example, it often surpassed it in the quality of the rare photos, artwork and articles. But for the most part it was very close, and I hold them both in high esteem, treasuring my copies of each.

Issue #7, pictured below, depicted a Romulan attack on Earth. Ralph's specialty was ships, technology and architecture, all rendered with precise accuracy and near-photographic detail. This was before CAD and Photoshop, kids... so don't feel superior to the artists that did it by hand.

As if a Romulan invasion wasn't bad enough, the eastern coast of the U.S. was threatened by a hurricane. Some days nothing goes right.

Below, an interior full-page piece of art that incorporated both his space scenes and ship interiors. Fowler never ceased to amaze me with his paintings and drawings! I'll be showcasing more in future posts, for sure.

Bonus: Below, the cover art of a coloring book. The beginning of the K/S rumor can probably be traced to this one item. There is just so much wrong here that it could almost be a "spot the mistakes" game.

The significance of the pump should not be overlooked.

1978 article: ST Then and Now

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From the Winter Annual special sci-fi-oriented "Rona Barrett's Hollywood" magazine, comes this article about the new movie, which was still a year away. While most of the write-ups were in the "gossip-tabloid" style, focusing on the cast friction of the various shows and such, the Trek article was pretty straight-forward with accurate facts. Not enough was known about the friction between certain cast members at the time to make for juicy gossip like we get now.

Bonus: scanned from the 1997 ST:TOS calendar.

"Well, Spock... lots of kids wet their bed when under stress. It's nothing to be ashamed of now."

1979 Science Digest article

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Not photo-heavy, but containing interesting previews of the tech seen in the movie, this 1979 cover article from "Science Digest" is primarily about the new Trek's science advisor's contributions to the script. Having a science advisor for all it's various outings helped make it more than the average "make-it-up-completely" sci-fi people were used to seeing.

Below: When the bumper sticker on my family car said "My other car is a starship," it wasn't kidding. Source: Warp Car

But does it come with Navigational deflectors and cloaking device?

The Man Who Saved Star Trek

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This article was scanned from the pages of a 1982 issue of "StarBlazer," a lower-rung magazine that was grouped in with the near-tabloid quality of such mags as "Star Warp," "Space Wars," "Star Encounters," and many others. During the 70's and 80's, one might see a over a dozen or so mags from the same company on the stand and not know it. Publishing mogul Myron Fass and son published a wide range of pulp exploitation mags in various genres, including soft-core porn (read a page about him, but be warned, NSFW since covers are shown).

Being the collectorI was of any kind of magazine about Trek and SF, I of course bought many of them, even then knowing they were trashy. But, occasionally an article would rise above sensationalism and made-up stories, like this interview with Nicholas Meyers. Illustrated with many awesome behind-the-scenes photos, it read more like an article from Starlog. The sloppily mis-matched photo captions -a seeming trademark of these publications- still plagued the layout, though.

Below: Did you catch this photo in the article? I'm betting not many fans know about this cut plot point of Khan's baby son; did you? There had to be other scenes; since I doubt that the baby shows up only in the last seconds to crawl on the platform with the activated Genesis device.

"No, Leonard, I don't think giving Kirstie a line about Spock's "Vulcan endowment" is a good idea... sorry."

Below, one of the earliest articles announcing the new film, clipped from a Beckley, WV newspaper on March 18, 1982. This was the first look I and many others had of the new uniforms and I loved them!

Star Trek II Being Filmed

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The article above was clipped from a Beckley, WV newspaper sometime in November, 1981. It was the first news I had heard that there was even going to be a sequel, and I was thrilled. The news that Khan was returning was even more exciting, and was a great idea that energized me, as well as the fan base... everyone seemed to sense that this was going to be a better movie than the last, and began looking forward to it.

Below, as a counterpoint to the announcement the Montalban had begun filming, is a clipping from early fall of 1982 that talks about his returning to his role on Fantasy Island.

Bonus: Below, a photo of a rare Trek toy made during the show's run. Note the detailed accuracy of the toy, precisely recreating Spock's favorite weapon, the futuristic grenade-launching rocket pistol.

Just make sure you don't lose that single grenade, kid, cause you ain't getting another one.

Bonus: a publicity photo of Spock with his tri-D chess set, which Kirk got him for Christmas from the Hamilton Collection, for which he is still making monthly payments of $99.

"Just holding this makes me looks smarter, don't you agree?"

Bonus: another of the 1967 Leaf cards. If one goes according to the caption, Spock and McCoy are severely undressed.

Besides making a weird sound effect, Spock's heat lamp did little to help McCoy defrost his medical freezer.