My Epic Trek Comic Book Read #4

In Gold Key issue 4, "The Peril of Planet Quick Change" (June 1969), Spock discovers a highly unstable planet in "Galaxy Telpha Z." The constantly shifting surface is dangerous, but Spock has also detected tiantianium ore, "an ounce of which can propel a spaceship for a year," as Kirk says, so a landing party is …

Open the Pod Bay Doors, HAL

2001: A Space Odyssey has been one of my favorite films for decades. But for a movie with a large devoted geek following, it has long been underrepresented in the merch department. There have been some models in the past, but a lot of the collectibles have been high-end expensive figures. But in honor of …

An Auspicious Anniversary

I got busy yesterday and totally forgot to mark the occasion. Five years ago on April 9 I was laid off from my day job. I'd spent ten years with my employer. I started as a copyeditor, moved up to associate editor, then acquiring editor. But publishing continues to go through adjustments in the age …

My Epic Trek Comic Book Read #3

Gold Key issue 3 (December 1968), “Invasion of the City Builders,” serves up a passable automation-gone-too-far story, but once again it’s wrapped in a tortilla with a large side of WTF sauce. The Enterprise, continuing the galaxy-hopping trend of the two previous issues, is now “at the edge of a distant galaxy.” Impossible travel times …

My Epic Trek Comic Book Read #2

Gold Key issue 2 (March 1968), “The Devil’s Isle of Space,” finds a landing party including Captain Kirk trapped on a prison asteroid where the condemned are about to be executed en masse when the planet-sized unstable rock explodes. It’s not a bad concept for a story, and it raises Prime Directive issues even though …