The ongoing adventures of Star Trek ongoing

Newsarama have posted an interview with Mike Johnson, the writer of IDW's Star Trek ongoing series, discussing how the series has progressed and where it is going. Assessing the series to date Johnson noted that:

We started off with small deviations, but as we proceed, we’re getting further and further from the original timeline. Issues #9 and #10, “The Return of the Archons,” is an example of how the new timeline diverges significantly from the original story. The last movie was the butterfly. This series builds up to the hurricane that is the next movie.

I always try to put little hints in where I can, with Bob’s permission, but that Romulus story was more about continuing a thread from the ’09 movie, and also setting up a new status quo for the Federation and the Romulans to be explored in future comics, books, games, etcetera.

The hints are not the kind that will spoil anything in the movie. They are more retroactive, in the sense that after you see the movie you can go back and see where things were set up. Some are very direct; others are more thematic. My favorite so far is in issue #12, the conclusion of the Tribble story.

Thinking more specifically towards the next film, and the comics that come before and after it:

Ideally, the prequel would be its own mini-series like the original Countdown, while the ongoing continues to tell other stories that build up to the sequel.

...we would all like to continue the series beyond the movie release. At that point, we can really go where we haven’t gone before without any fear of contradicting or spoiling anything in the movie.

You can read the full interview, here. The artwork meanwhile comes via Tim Bradstreet's Facebook page, the cover artwork, sans titles, for the most recent issue in the ongoing series.