IDW- Star Trek: Second Stage

IDW have put out a press release detailing their plans for Star Trek comics on the first half of next year. Aside from the details of the new series I think the biggest news is that they're upping production to four issues a month! "We’re expanding our slate of titles to four issues a month, so that there’s a feeling of weekly appointment reading for our audience, like a Star Trek TV show. At the same time, we want each title to have the significance of a Star Trek film, so that each series is a seminal comics event." I hope they can live up to that claim, or they might find the milk of the Trekkie cash cow turning sour on them...

Anyways, the 2008 collection will be branded Star Trek: Second Stage and as we already know will be made by some notable Trek names. Here are the details of the miniseries in the first half of the year (art is mostly early stage promo stuff): 
 

New Frontier
New Frontier will be a five-part series by Peter David with art by Stephen Thompson starting in March. The first issue will see the debut of IDW's new "Quad Cover" format, featuring four covers all on the same issue... wonder how that'll work. Earlier solicitations reported the first issue would be titled "Slingshot", the press release refers to "Turnaround" though, maybe it changed or maybe one is the miniseries title...

Year Four: The Enterprise Experiment

D.C. Fontana and Derek Chester's five-part Year Four continuation, with art by Gordon Purcell, will begin in April. The series will also have covers by the Sharp Brothers. The blurb:

Federation efforts to fully adapt the cloaking device to Starfleet ships leads to an experiment gone awry, trapping Kirk and Spock on an Enterprise out of phase with space itself. At the same time, Romulan forces close in on the starship, intent on claiming revenge for their stolen technology.

Later chapters in the series will provide a sequel to the first two issues, as the Klingon Empire — with its own agenda — suddenly enters the fray.

Assignment Earth
Another five part series, written and illustrated by John Byrne, starting in May. This series will be spun off from the TOS episode of the same name, eg the Gary Seven episode. Each issue will take place a year after the previous one, starting in 1968.

Mirror Images
Starting in June, this four part series written by the Tipton Two and Chris Ryall, with art by David Messina, will tell tales from mirror universe; Specifically the rise of James T. Kirk to take command of the ISS Enterprise from Christopher Pike. The series will also highlight mirror McCoy, Scotty and Uhura.

According the Kieth R.A. DeCandido IDW have been working with Pocket Books to keep this consistent with growing body of prose mirror universe stories.

Another mirror universe series, set in the TNG era, is scheduled for later in the year. This one will be written by Andrew Steven Harris and George Strayton.

You can read the original release in all it's glory, here, here, here or here!