Bob Larkin Star Trek Art

Artist Bob Larkin has been responsible for many. many memorable covers of the magazines that I collected when young; Planet of the Apes, Marvel's monster magazines, Crazy, DC comics covers, Trek novel covers, and many many more. I have just created a Facebook group devoted to collecting his art in one place, so if you, like me, love his art and have good memories of it, come join us! It's at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/boblarkinappreciationgroup

A true Trek fan himself, here we see Bob in a photo from his blog commemorating the 50th anniversary of the show!  Visit his blog here: http://boblarkin.blogspot.com/

"Crazy" Spoof of "The Wrath of Khan"

(Click on images to enlarge.)

Featured this time is a "Crazy" magazine spoof of "The Wrath of Khan" from issue #92, published in December of 1982. Another winner of a cover by Bob Larkin, whose likenesses and accurate details never failed to delight a fan like me. And the inside spoof art is not too shabby this time, either. The last post I made with their ST:TMP story was merely a retread of old "Mad" art based on the TV show with a bit of the new movie script sprinkled in. But this time, the ships, sets, unforms and plot are represented well. It's a bit strange, though, that although the cover does give away Spock's death as a plot point, the story inside doesn't even touch on it. The last page feels rushed, in fact, as if there should have been more but they ran out of time. Anyway, enjoy!

1980 "Crazy" ST:TMP Spoof

(Click on images to enlarge!)

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.