Starlog #3 Con Articles Part 2

As promised last time, here are more of the pages from Starlog issue #3 covering the September 1976 Bicentennial 10 convention in New York. The pages this time cover appearances by NASA space specialist Jesco Von Puttkamer (who would go on to be the technical advisor on ST:TMP), Kathryn Hays (Gem), James Doohan, Stanley Adams (Cyrano Jones) and Tribbles writer David Gerrold, as well as a look at the (in)famous blooper reel. Enjoy!

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Below, it was with amusement that I read the text in the David Gerrold panel. The question and his answer are, in retrospect, prophetic in view of his later revelations.

Come back soon for more convention report pages from this memorable issue!

1979 "Bananas" article on ST:TMP

From the collection cabinet this time we take out issue #33 of the Scholastic Books teen publication "Bananas," published in fall of 1979, which spotlighted the upcoming "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."

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Bonus: another of my photo humor pieces hopefully good for a chuckle or chortle.

Bonus #2: another of the crazily-captioned 1967 Leaf cards. It must have been fun to just make up stupid captions like they did!

Update: since the photo of the transporter accident spawned some discussion in the comments, I just had to post this cartoon dealing with the subject!

"The Designing of ST:TMP" 1980 article

(Don't strain your optical orbs... click on images to enlarge!)

On December 7th, we saw the 30th anniversary of one of the most anticipated movies (at least by me) ever made ... the majestically-titled "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." Long on effects and ideas, but short on actual motion, the movie was like a slow and loving camera trip through an art museum to linger on the masterpieces. Very beautiful to gaze at and appreciate, but only good if you love art, have plenty of time and are patient when it comes to your thrills. I enjoy the better-edited and more complete Director's Edition much more now than the original release.

The article scanned in this time is from "Fantastic Films" magazine, a high-quality publication a bit below "Cinefantastique" but above "Starlog." The interview with Harold Michelson is a nice look at what went into the look of the movie, with some good behind-the-scenes images.

I've been posting these articles and clippings about the first Trek movie for awhile now, so if you want to get caught up with the history of the film's release, follow the "ST:TMP" tag and the "first movie" tag. Reading over them, I hope you recapture your own sense of excitement, or at least see what it was like for us fans back then.

Thirty years.... just doesn't seem real now. The movie seems to be holding up better than I am.

"The Black Hole," also featured on the cover, had a lot more action, even though the story and effects were on a grand scale like "TMP," so it could have been done. I've thought before how neat it would have been to combine the two; using the story of "The Black Hole" as the basis for the new movie. I think it would have been a fine Trek movie and much more exciting. Adapting the story for Trek could have eliminated some of the poorer elements of both: "TBH" could lose the shallow characterization and dialog, and "TMP" could lose the mind-numbing flights through effects for a let-down ending.

Seeing Kirk match wits with Reinhardt's massive mind and ego, and the crew having to fight their way out of the collapsing Cygnus... the new Enterprise dragged into the black hole also, but protected by Spock's application of the new shield technology...it could have been truly awesome!

Below, a fun piece of art by Don Rosa showing the use of the Guardian that most of us geeks would come up with for it. Scanned from an issue of "Enterprise Incidents."

Below, another of my photo humor pieces.

Word spread rapidly for a ship as large as the Enterprise.

Cracked Interviews The Trekker King

(Click on images to view Nanny-sized scans!)
Try not to read any sexual subtext into this scene. Go ahead... try.

Talk about your Super-Nanny! Artist Bill Ward, (who passed away in 1998) was known for decades among men's magazine readers for his eye-popping good-girl art. Nanny Dickering was one of his more famous creations among the impressionable younger readers of Cracked, many of whom were just starting to notice those things, and who probably were becoming more interested in her killer curves than the magazine's humor.

This was scanned from my copy of Issue #169 of Cracked, published in July of 1980. The cover spoof was on the new movie, and I'll be posting that soon for your enjoyment or recollection, whichever the case may be... but this spoof on Trekkies was so good I just had to share it first.

This would be funnier if it weren't so painfully true to life.

Although many of us fans may recognize ourselves, particularly in the spot-on convention scene depicted, I can speak for us male Trekkers when I say we would never, ever make our wife shave her head. Wear a black wig and tight red mini-skirt with go-go boots, yes; paint her green and have her do an animalistic hootchie-kootchie around the room in a skimpy dinosaur skin, most definitely... but shave her head, no.

I do envy the guy having the money to live in an Enterprise-shaped house, though. Don't tell me you wouldn't if you could, either.

My only question is why they drew the guy as a look-alike for William Shatner... no mention of plastic surgery is made. Just a typical person would have made more sense; a spoof article would be more likely to draw a Trekker as a stereotypical nerdy-type person... but I suppose we should be glad thatHEYWHOA! would you LOOK at that rack!!! Um, er... the equipment rack holding the speakers and such, up there... yeah, that's it... (Whew!)

I do like his idea of Trekker-Land, which we sort of got with Star Trek: The Experience. But I wonder where the writer got the strange idea that fans were that defensive, though? It's a well-known fact that we only attack those making changes to new incarnations!

"Now, that Nanny Dickering is a woman I could really get into!"

1967 Popular Science article

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Originally published in the December 1967 issue of Popular Science.

Star Trek's technology, grounded as it was in scientific theory and mixed with imaginative and logical design, ignited a burning interest in the viewers to know more. Unusual for a show of the time period and even long after; how many articles did you see on the science of "Lost In Space"? I was captivated by the ships and gadgets also; the first picture I ever drew of the show was the Enterprise, and I continued to do so for years as I became more familiar with it. It really was one of the stars of the show as far as I was concerned.

I loved that kind of thing so much, that one day in 1974 I wore my newly-acquired AMT Star Trek Exploration Set to school... the phaser and communicator on my belt (attached with velcro, just like the show) and a hand-made insignia pinned to my shirt. Yes, I was a geek before people knew what to call them, but it did attract the interest of a couple of like-minded students who became my Trekker pals. (Nowadays, it would result in being suspended for bringing a "weapon" to school and possibly triggering an evacuation and SWAT Team incident). But, to a small group of other teens I was cool since I was always bringing fun mags like Famous Monsters and The Monster Times to school with me, which they all gathered around and read in study hall. My drawings were always passed around with exclamations of their coolness.

Bonus: Below, a painting of our lovely lady by Andy Probert, from the set that you could buy in the early 70's from Lincoln Enterprises. You can see some others as they are in frames on my wall, in the picture here. Andy, of course, went on to design the movie version of the ship based on drawings by Matt Jefferies, the ships' original creator.

And below, from a far less accomplished artist (namely, me), a drawing of the ship from memory, made one day in 1974 (when I was 15) as I sat in the library at school during lunch break. The Klingon ship I did have a reference for, as I looked at the illustration in "The Making of Star Trek" a day or two later, adding it to the drawing.

I was a relative late-comer to the show, but like many people, came to know and love it during the re-run popularity it began to have in the early 70's. One early exposure was the Gold Key comic book, and the first issue I ever bought, #20... the cover of which I scanned in for you below. It further whetted my appetite for the real thing, as did the James Blish books, causing me to start sneaking in any episodes I could catch on TV when I could, and saving any magazine or newspaper articles I found... which is what this blog is all about sharing now.

Man, this takes me back... to when I bought it in September of 1973, to be exact. Nothing quite as exciting as a zero-G fight using vacuum cleaners!

The crew reacts as the young Kirk gets the snot beat
out of him again in the new movie about their exploits.

Aug. 7, 1978 Star Trek Report from Starlog

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Scanned from Starlog issue #18 in December of 1978, this article relates the events of the first day of filming on the new movie. Each month Susan Sackett, Gene's assistant, would contribute a column to the magazine keeping fans apprised of the movie's progress, and this insider's view was one of the main ways we Trekkers kept up on the details of how this long-delayed project was coming along month to month.

The photo in the article was too good to pass up using for a captioned humor piece...

Gene tries to convince Bill that he can't pose like that due to the film's "G" rating.

Bonus: Early Mike Minor pre-production painting for the aborted Phase II series before it became refined for ST:TMP.

Below: The crew gets together for the grand opening of the new Star Trek display at the Hollywood Movieland Wax Museum, circa 1978. Sadly, the museum was closed in 2005, and the figures sold off. Read about what happened to the bridge crew here... it's a happy ending with lots of pictures.

Spot the real Bill Shatner and ignore the fact that Nichelle went braless that day.

And finally, below is the first drawing I did of the good captain when I was 15, in 1974. Shatner was always a hard one to get right for some reason, as the many action figure face sculptures will attest.

National Lampoon Magazine's "Detente Trek" comic

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The recent Newsweek issue with the Star Trek cover has an article in it that casts current administration figures in Star Trek roles. But it's been done before: the National Lampoon Magazine ran this political spoof in issue #72, in March 1976. The strip featured the Gold Key Star Trek font and put key figures in the Ford administration in the roles of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Sulu, Chekov and Uhura are still there, though.

This is one gaseous cloud that doesn't smell like honey....

Sadly for the crew, not only are Green Orion enchiladas just as hot and spicy as their women, but the captain can't resist them either.