1976 Village Voice Trek article

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Scanned from the clipping of the February 2, 1976 issue of the Village Voice newspaper. The article itself is a silly piece of psuedo-intellectualism, which I recognised even then, but a Star Trek article of any type was worth saving, and this one, when read between the lines, gave a nice look into the convention scene at the time. I lived in Ft. Lauderdale FL at the time I found this, and a Trek item was the only reason I would pick up a copy of this rag.

Bonus content: The covers of the Trek books have many times yielded memorable artwork over the years, and Bob Larkin was one of my all-time favorite book and magazine cover illustrators. Many of the best monster magazine covers came from him and I treasure each one in my collection. The one below is a scan of the cover of "Vulcan!" (presumably shouted when said out loud) published in 1978.

The ants at Vulcan picnics are slightly more aggressive than the Earth variety.

And below is the cover art alone... nice!

The Monster TImes Star Trek book review

Back in 1972, I had just discovered Trek, and was about to find the Blish novels for the first time.

Up to this point the only Trek I had read was the Gold Key comics, and they weren't exactly true to the show. Below is the scanned in article on those books. If you were a reader of the James Blish adaptations, this will bring back some memories as well as knowing nods.

Here is the famous (or infamous) "Keep On Trekin'" poster from that issue that has now become a part of my blog header!

Below is an ad page from a later 1976 issue that will give you an idea of what we had to choose from as far as Trek items back then. This page served as a Sears Wish Book for me, in that I gazed at it and dreamed of owning so much of what was there. Thankfully, the books I could and did own as time went by. Each one was a treasure, even truncated as they were. I had never seen the episodes they were adapted from at that point, so even the scant descriptions given by Blish were like samples of my favorite dish, and only whetted my appetite to see them.

Yes, every true "trekkie" must own a pair of Mr. Spock ears. Scanned from the same issue.

And here are the scanned covers of my copies of the books that meant so much to me at the time. Getting my hands on them as a young teen helped make some of the best memories I have of those times. Looking at them now brings back a flood of sweet nostalgia!

1977 Starlog article: Animating Star Trek

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I collected Starlog for many years beginning with their first issue, and for a long time it was my main source of sci-fi and Star Trek news. Below is scanned in the article from the June 1977 issue #6, about the making of the animated series. For a couple of years the cartoon was the only source of new Trek and it was exciting to have, and this article written 4 years later came out while it was still very fresh in our memories. Enjoy!

Note the ad for the functioning prop replicas even back then. Master Replicas wasn't the first to offer them!

The extended adaptations by Alan Dean Foster were awesome to read. Whereas James Blish condensed the tv show hour-long scripts to feature 8 or more stories per book, Foster added to the half-hour scripts and enhanced the stories greatly. I have fond memories of these books, and especially this first one. How excited I was to find it and soak it in!

Recently, the L.A. Times published the photo below that shows the Big Three taping their lines for the animated show. It was a rarity when any of them could actually get together to tape at the same time.

Besides being together again, they're just happy to be working!

Trek Or Treat!

Below is a Famous Monsters article on the episode "Catspaw" from 1977. Oddly enough, unlike all of their other "telebook" articles, they featured no images from the episode, so I scanned in one from another scrapbook page (above) to accompany it.

Published in 1977, "Trek or Treat" was full of black and white photos from the series with lame captions. But I bought it for the pictures, which were frames from the episodes, which was cool.