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/

1986 Article: The Writers of Star Trek

From the 20th Anniversary Celebration issue of Starlog, published in November of 1986 (see the cover here), comes this article on a couple of writers of the original show. The pages feature two rare publicity photos of the guest stars from a couple of the episodes.

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Bonus: a full-page ad from June 1992 issue of The Official Fan Club magazine with James Doohan in costume as Scotty advertising the QVC show that he was a guest host on. Did you order anything from this program?

Bonus: A publicity photo of Nimoy taken during the filming of the episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before." Nimoy's high collar was different from the other costumes, made with snaps on each side so that it could be put on and taken off without messing up his makeup.

 

Bonus: more of the promised TOS original novel covers, this time from "The Abode Of Life," published in May of 1982. The cover art by "Rowena" was from the TMP era, but with brown cowboy boots rather then the built-in footy-pajama type. Also, that pulp-inspired raygun is about as far away from a phaser as one can get. I know some of my readers get a kick out of this non-regulation art, because it came from a time before the Trek merchandise became more tightly controlled. But at the time it just made me scratch my head and wonder why they couldn't get things like this right.

Shuttlecraft from TV Sci-Fi Monthly

The British publication TV Sci-Fi Monthly, published in the mid-70's, was a rare item to find, and a great one. Here is an image and blueprint of the shuttlecraft from the inside cover of issue #3, which came out in 1976. The cover for this issue has already been posted, you may view it here, as well as more material from the same issue.  Since this is such a short entry, I have added some extra bonus items below it.

(Click on images to enlarge; once open, you may have to click again to view full-size.)

Bonus: publicity photo of Celia Lovsky as T'Pau and Shatner from "Amok Time." Notice her hand on his shoulder!

Bonus #2: Covers from the first of the adaptations of the animated series scripts by Alan Dean Foster, which to me were awesome, having the scripts actually expanded upon (unlike the truncated versions by Blish), with only THREE half-hour episodes per book! I bought this one at the Chi-Chester's Drug Store on Vineville Ave in Macon, GA one Saturday in 1974 when I was staying with my grandmother, and read it the same day. Good times! The store is still there, by the way.

Extra special bonus! Below, we see some very revealing images of Uhura's panties during a scene from "Balance Of Terror." The flap on the back of the dress has come open, and she is showing more cheek than usual, even for her! What was Kirk saying, now? Who cares?

"Spock Must Die!" Novel

As I was mulling over what to post next on this blog, I began to realize that I had focused very little, comparatively, on the classic Trek novel covers, of which there are many. I decided to rectify that situation, by immediately starting to scan them in and post them, starting with one I had somehow missed up to this point, the first original novel that so many of us remember fondly: "Spock Must Die!"

(Click on the images to enlarge; once it opens, you may have to click on it again to view full size.)

As a youth just entering my teens back in the early 70's, when I began to find the Star Trek novelizations by James Blish (and what an exciting time that was) I was always on the lookout for the newest one. I came into it a bit late, as by that time (1973) there were quite a few out already, (up to #8) so my discoveries weren't so much waiting on the next one to be printed, but the next one I was lucky enough to find on a bookstand somewhere. (Oddly enough, however, I did pretty much find and buy them in the order they were printed for some reason, over the next few years.) I was up to #3 in the series when I found "Spock Must Die" in the book spinner of the local drugstore where I lived at the time, and boy, what a day!

I mean, the mini-adaptations packed into the novelizations by Blish were exciting enough (they were my first introductions to the episodes, as in most cases I read them well before seeing them a few years later on the TV re-runs), but here... here was a NOVEL, a whole book on the show! Boggle!!! I remember thinking that it was an adaptation of an episode or two, before it sank in later that it was wholly original and not from a filmed show. I was still new to it all and in the exciting "wide-eyed discovery" phase of fandom at this point. When I say that finding Trek material such as this was the most exciting thing that could happen in my life at that point, I am not exaggerating. At all. Nothing could compare to the thrill of finding a new book, or magazine with an article about the show, and I could ride on a high for days after doing so. Who needed drugs, or wild physical thrills, when such happiness could be experienced over something so simple?

Even now, taking out these same books that I held in my eager fingers so many years ago, I am transported back to that time, and I vividly remember how each one made me feel. The flood of nostalgic feelings they trigger, and the memories they invoke, are almost as exciting to re-live now, as the books themselves were to me back then. They made my life more special, and the difficulties I went through were more bearable. I remember listening as I read to the Carpenter's song "Yesterday Once More" which was current at the time, and it is still one of my favorite oldies. I bought my first copy of "The Monster Times" about the same time.

I hope that as I go through the process of scanning in the covers of the various classic Trek novels that came out from the 70's through the 90's (which is where I stopped collecting them after just so long), that the posts will stimulate your own memories... and that you will share them with me in the comments.

Future posts on the various books will mostly feature the covers and not much in the way of reviews; most of them I haven't read in years, since reading them once when I bought them for the most part; and I would have to read them all again and invest too much time to do a proper review. But I hope you enjoy seeing the covers!

I've already scanned the rest of the Blish novelizations, which you can find using the "Blish novels" search tag. But I found that I had not finished, having omitted #12, and the above book. So, with this post, I finish all the Blish books. By this the time all the episodes were adapted, and I was wondering where I would get my Trek book fix afterwards. However, I should not have feared, for I had then begun to discover the big three "making of" books that were out (to be covered soon), and after that there started to be more original novels.

Below, the back cover with the blurbs about the episodes covered... it makes it seem as if each episode they visited a new universe where one condition ruled, rather than different planets in the same universe. I wonder who wrote these?  

Bonus: the last of the Random House greeting cards from 1976, which I purchased from "Starship Enterprises" in Ft. Lauderdale, FL when I lived down there. See the rest under the "greeting cards" label.

1986 Article on Star Trek Novels

More this time from the great 20th Anniversary Issue of Starlog, #112, published in October of 1986; I've been posting material from it recently, and will do more until it's all here.

Back when new Trek was still years away (and only a hopeful dream), and later during the lulls in between the movies, the Trek fiction novels were all we fans had (apart from fan fiction, which was hard to find for most, and the comics, which were basically short stories). I used to buy every single novel that came out, from the first, all the way up until about the mid-90's, when I only bought one now and then when a book looked particularly interesting. This article, titled "The Novel Adventures of Star Trek," briefly reviews the novels that were put out up till then, late in 1986.

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Bonus: below, from the same issue, is a one-page tribute to the series from author Allen Asherman, a name familiar to me from his days as editor of "The Monster Times."

And below is a panel of art commemorating the anniversary from the same issue depicting a meeting across time.

Kelly Freas McCoy Portrait

Today we continue posting the set of paintings by Kelly Freas, which I acquired from Lincoln Enterprises in 1976. So far, we've seen the somewhat familiar Kirk and Spock, and today we see the portrait of everyone's favorite grumpy but lovable country doctor, Leonard McCoy.

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"Three guesses where this probe is going?"

Below, we take a closer look at the good doctor's face, and in this case I have no criticism; Freas perfectly captured DeForest Kelly's features. If the artist was working from recent photos of the cast rather than production pictures, as some commenters on previous posts mentioned, then DeForest had changed the least of the three main stars. Here we see only a few more creases, but the expression is pure McCoy, which shows that Freas certainly could depict accurate faces with no trouble. Using a sickbay wall panel as a background, and giving him a (fairly generic) medical instrument, adds some visual interest as well. All around, an excellent part of the set, and a beautiful painting on its own.

"I only peek in the line of duty. Now, get undressed, Nyota."

Bonus: (retroactively added on 1-14-10) Here is the DeForest Kelly salute from Starlog issue #112 (October 1986) which was the Trek 20th Anniversary edition.

By coincidence, this photo of McCoy perfectly matches the position of his head in the painting.

Bonus: Below, the cover of the "Wrath of Khan" paperback adaptation, published in July of 1982. After the "leisurely" pace of the previous movie, I (and many fans) were ready for some action, and by George, we knew from the moment we heard the title that we were likely to get it. The return of Khan! I was super excited, and picked up the novelization a few days before the movie came out. As I usually did in such cases, I read about 75 percent of it before stopping, in order to preserve any surprises that the ending of the movies brought. I was glad I did, when I saw the movie. Although the cover art is uncredited, it shows all the earmarks of a Bob Larkin painting, so that's my best guess. Anyone know for sure? Update: Two commenters think it's by Boris Vallejo, so it probably is. He did some great covers also. When I find out for sure, I'll post it!

"Spock, don't look now, but I think we're being followed."

Next: Another painting in the set; and if you say one word about what he's wearing, you could get kilt by this manly bearded swordsman.

Animated M'Ress Bio

In her brief appearances M'ress managed to show more tail on the bridge than Uhura did, and that's saying a lot.

Last time, we looked at one of two bios of the new alien characters from the animated series that I bought in the early 70's from Lincoln Enterprises. We've seen Arex's dossier; now let's look at the other, for the intriguing cat-like M'Ress. A quick Google-image search for her name will reveal that quite a few fans found her sexy and worthy of much fan art depicting her in various poses, uniforms, and stages of undress. Here's a forum thread with M'Ress appreciation as its topic.

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Below, a pencil drawing I made of M'ress sometime in the mid 70's, when I was about 16 or 17. I've posted this before, but thought considering the topic it would fit good here in case some had missed the earlier entry.

"Okay, who's the wise guy that put the flea collar on my chair?"

Bonus: Below we see the cover of the second Blish original Star Trek novel, started by him before his death and finished by his widow, Judith Ann Lawrence, who often co-wrote his books with him and had in fact finished the last adaptation, #12, when Blish sadly passed away before completing it. "Mudd's Angels" was published in May of 1978. The cover art is by one of my genre favorites, Bob Larkin, who invokes the feeling of the earlier adaptation covers depicting the starship in close proximity to similar alien planet surfaces.

"Ahh, th' pimpin' life is good, me lassies!"

Below is the back cover, continuing the style seen in all the other direct adaptations in the series.

Star Trek Poster Magazine #2

From the boundless depths of the collection cabinets comes Issue #2 of the Star Trek Poster Magazine, officially known as the "Star Trek Giant Poster Book." Published October 10, 1976, this monthy magazine was the one publication I did not miss. Knowing when it was due on the drugstore magazine stand, I haunted the rack until the magazine delivery guy dropped off his shipment and was the first to get an issue from the bundle!

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Bonus: Below, the next in the series of novelizations by James Blish. Painted by the same artist that did the cover for #9, the art is so similar that it could be mistaken for the earlier edition at first look. A little lazy, it seemed to me at the time. Surely even a change in the background colors could have set it apart more.