The Letter

Okay, you remember the letter I was telling you about at the end of my previous post? It didn't take me long to find it after all (it just took me longer than I thought to actually get to looking for it). Here it is in the back of issue #8 of DC's second Star Trek series, which launched in 1989. Read it and weep -- weep for him and others like him, that is. I just hope that this Mr. Mason has come to his senses and seen the ridiculousness of his prejudices since this letter was printed.



(Click image to enlarge.)

The Trek Comics Motherlode

My collection of Star Trek memorabilia is basically concentrated in three major categories, all of which I'll eventually reveal to you. The first of these is the comic books. Allow me to introduce you to what may very well be the bitchinest piece of Trek-related merchandise out there (click on the product's image to go to its Amazon listing) -- at least I've got the feeling that most of you missed it when it came out, seeing as even the proprietor of my local comic book store didn't even know about it until I clued him into its existence. I've never gone looking for such a statistic, but I have to wonder what percentage of Trekkers are or have been regular readers and/or collectors of the various Trek comics. If you've never read them, then you're definitely missing out on bunches of well-written and entertaining stories. And if you do read/collect them, then odds are there are probably some that you've never read or been able to add to your collection. Well, that's where this item comes in.



Imagine, if you will, every issue of every Star Trek comic book ever published (up until 2002, when Wildstorm stopped producing them), all packed onto one DVD disc. Yes, each and every page -- including the front and back covers, the letters pages (in which I was immortalized once in 1991), and even the vintage advertisements -- are all scanned into clearly readable PDF files and accessible by an easy-as-rokeg-blood-pie interface. And though you can't copy the files for use elsewhere, you can print them out in whole or in part (though an unobtrusive Starfleet arrowhead watermark will show on the printed page). These restrictions are a small price to pay for the convenience of having literally hundreds of comic books squeezed into the shelf space of a DVD case, not to mention being able to fill any of the gaps in your comic collection ... assuming you're not a hardcore comics collector and are concerned only with the content (I fall into that category, and don't own any of the vintage Gold Key issues or the initial 1980 Marvel series, so this DVD does nicely to take care of that.)



Best of all, this item is a pretty decent bargain even at full retail price, considering the funds it would take to accumulate the hard copies of all the comics in question. I read one review that says there are a few botched scans (mucked-up or cut-off images) in the mix, but I personally haven't found them yet. But even a Trek nut like yours truly finds it hard to complain about a relatively small shortcoming like that. Did I mention that the thing runs right from Adobe Reader, so that no software installation on your computer is even necessary (unless you have an outdated version of Adobe Reader)? You couldn't ask for more, could you? Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm gonna go now and see if I can find the issue where some horse's ass in the letters pages, who claimed to be a Trek fan, had a problem with Scotty and Uhura getting tender with each other (a continuation of sorts from their flirting in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) 'cause he didn't believe in the "mixing of the races". (You think I'm making that up? Sadly, I'm not. Maybe I'll share it with you once I've found it....)

Live Long And Party

Here's a movie with which I can identify a little bit more closely than I'm comfortable with ... although I do really enjoy watching it. It's called Free Enterprise, and without giving too much of it away, it stars Rafer Weigel and a pre-Will & Grace Eric McCormack as two best friends who are dealing with stalled love lives and stalled careers as they approach their 30th birthdays. Both avid Star Trek fans, they see a glimmer of hope for their respective futures when Mark (McCormack) gets the chance at collaborating with their childhood idol, William Shatner (in a brilliantly warped but thankfully minimally-hammed-up performance as a caricature of himself), and at the same time Robert (Weigel) meets the girl of his dreams.

I don't want to risk spoiling any more of the plot. Those of you who have watched the Trekkies 2 DVD will probably recognize the dramatization of a tale that Robert Meyer Burnett, Free Enterprise's co-writer and director, told of showing up at school in a Star Trek uniform -- indeed, the movie is based loosely on the lives of Burnett and Mark Altman, the film's other co-writer. The script is packed with pop-culture references, mostly Star Trek and sci-fi but some otherwise, so we geeks will have plenty to laugh at (assuming we don't take our lives or our fandoms too seriously). If you haven't seen this film yet, you must ... and if you're like me, you'll probably end up picking up the two-disc special edition ... and at only ten dollars, what have you got to lose?