Hasslein Blog

By Rich Handley

When it comes to collecting Star Trek comics, every fan does things according to his or her own unique preferences. Some set out to own every individual issue, while others forego buying their comics monthly and instead purchase trade paperback and/or hardcover editions repackaging entire storylines or series. Some buy only one copy of each issue that comes out, while others attempt to track down every single variant cover ever produced, which can be incredibly expensive. Still others have fully made the transition to reading their comics digitally.

Some focus only on specific characters (James T. Kirk's crew, for example), writers (anything by Peter David, Howard Weinstein, or Michael Jan Friedman), artists (anything with a Jerome Moore cover), publishers (all IDW or DC Comics tales), or eras (just stories set in the 24th century). And some who have money to burn set their sights on finding everything remotely related to Star Trek comics, even if it's something they already own but in a different format.

Marvel's Star Trek: Untold Voyages issue #1, written by Glenn Greenberg, with art by Michael Collins and Keith Williams, is the reason Star Trek comics are worth collecting. If you haven't read this five-issue miniseries, you owe it to yourself to rectify that oversight immediately.

My personal collection contains every licensed Star Trek comic book published to date by Gold Key/Western, Power Records, Marvel, DC, Malibu Comics, Marvel/Paramount Comics, WildStorm Comics, Tokypop, IDW, and Wired magazine, along with unauthorized issues from Antarctic Press, Indonesian publisher Penerbit Cypress, Amazing Stories, and "Inner Light" writer Morgan Gendel. I also have all of the British strips published in Joe 90: Top Secret, TV21 & Joe 90, and Valiant and TV21, and the U.S. strips created by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, as well as several unusual and often-overlooked strips aimed at young children that were packaged with toys offed by Kenner, McDonald's, and Larami. And in all cases, I have the original, individual comics or strips.

Larami's Star Trek Space Viweer, the Holy Grail of Trek comics collectibles but  basically godawful, which I recently discussed at length at Blastoff Comics' blog.

Ever since I began collecting Trek comics in 1984 (with issue #9 of DC's first Star Trek series, which so hooked me that I immediately began tracking down everything that preceded it), my goal has been simple: to own and read every Star Trek story ever told in comic book or comic strip form—and preferably in its original format.

Collecting all of the many reprints has not been something I've sought to do, however, as it would be not only prohibitively expensive but also redundant. If I already own every issue, why would I also need those same issues reprinted in a dozen different formats? The stories and artwork remain the same from one iteration to the next, after all, other than some clean-up work on the coloring. Still, there are always exceptions to any rule, and in my case, the exceptions are whatever reprint editions happen to strike my fancy or are particularly appealing from an aesthetics standpoint. These include...

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Labels: comics, eaglemoss, graphic novels, Star Trek