Hope you’re doing well! Perhaps I’ll find the time to check your new blog one of these days (when I’m not watching LOST, my current geek obsession)

If you think OM was bad (I don’t, for the record, just ignorant) you should take a look at the TrekBBS. Man, those people are vicious . . . maybe because they’re trapped in 1990, and feel a little lonely.

Apparently PAD does have an exclusive contract to write comics for Marvel right now, but Marvel’s being flexible and allowing him to write for Trek/IDW. Although I’ve never read any New Frontier books, it makes sense since that series and those characters are his “baby,” so to speak. I might at least give the first issue a read at my local comic shop, just to see what I think. I’m guessing it’ll have more, and better, dialogue than most of the IDW books I’ve seen thus far.

So, Andrew, I’ll ask again in the hopes that you might read this… Are there any other old DC/Trek writers (or people who wrote for Trek on TV, perhaps?) that you might be coax into doing some TOS, TNG or (pretty please?) DS9 books for IDW?

#28 – Dan, that’s a good point about using the likenesses of familiar characters. But DC got around that back in their time. They used characters like Harry Mudd and Bela Oxmyx, but simply didn’t draw them exactly as they looked. Similar, but not exactly.

That was a great period for Trek comics… Good, fun stories with strong dialogue and character depth. It’s a shame DC stopped doing Trek. I can’t remember if they chose to stop, or if Paramount took the license back. I think it was the latter, since they gave DS9 to another company (the now defunct Malibu) and then started their own short-lived line of comics (via Marvel). DC did the best Trek comics, and they’ve never been topped.

Your spotlighting a couple of DS9 comics forces me to ask: Will IDW ever put out any DS9 books? There’s a lot of possibilites: Stories set in same period as/tied into the “DS9 Relaunch” novels, filling in gaps from the time of the TV series, stories that are more Bajor or Cardassia-centric, Section 31, etc. DS9 fans are out there, and we’re a pretty passionate bunch. Please consider!

I’ll be honest that I was deeply disappointed with the first IDW/Trek offering — the TNG miniseries “The Space Between”. In my opinion it was dull, confusing in parts, inconsistent art (at least one drawing of Riker looked more like McCoy!), and (like all of the IDW/Trek comics I’ve sampled, unfortunately), extremely light on dialogue and character depth. It probably didn’t help that you published a letter from a fan bashing DS9 in the first or second issue, but I was turned off quickly.

I did buy the Klingon miniseries and that was an improvement. Seeing famous events from the Klingon perspective was an interesting twist. It was fun, but the dialogue was still extremely light. At $3 a book these days, I want something that takes more than five minutes to read. That’s what plagued the first issue of ST:Year Four as well. There just wasn’t any “meat” there, Andrew… I dropped any IDW/Trek after that. Just wasn’t worth it.

But Andrew, the thing I really want to get across here is that IDW’s comics are really lacking when compared to those wonderful Trek comics DC was doing in the late 80’s/early-mid 90’s. Would it possible to get people like PAD (is he exclusive to Marvel now?) back into the fold?

Sorry if I sound pretty harsh, or long-winded, but I figure a good editor who cares about his product will listen to fan feedback. Thanks!

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/chris-claremont/debt-of-honor.htm