September's TOS retro posters

StarTrek.com has previewed the second set of retro TOS posters, which should be appearing this month. Featured this time are the episodes Balance of Terror, Charlie X, Wink of an Eye, and And the Children Shall Lead. Here they are, along with comments from the artist, Ortiz:

I made several of these poster centerfolds that I used to see in fanzines. Visually, I wasn't going for any specific style. I already knew what I wanted, so I just went through a few sketches with the layout until I was happy with it. I sort of think the final product has an animated feel to it.

The font is called Long Underwear. It's similar to what you might find in some 50's sci-fi films.

I always try to bring some relationship between the font and the visuals. Otherwise you end up with too many elements competing with each other. The twist key helps depict the Enterprise as a toy for Charlie to play with and eventually discard, in this case in the sand.

I was going for a surreal look. At one point I had a floating eyeball and some bare trees in the background, but I felt that there was too much going on. Plus the focus was really on the child aspect of it, not so much the surrealism.

I think that subconsciously I was inspired by the Man from U.N.C.L.E. logo. I can't think about the original Star Trek and 60's TV without some of those other shows filtering in.

The figure is of a statue used in a scene just before the opening credits. I thought it looked really cool and decided to use it. The circles indicate the sound waves generated by the Scalosians.

It's supposed to be a crude child's crude drawing of the Enterprise with the primary and secondary hull in the shape of a skull with the warp engines as bones. It's meant to signify the evil that has taken control of the Enterprise.

The sixties were not all swinging and groovy. There were also ugly images of the Vietnam War on television. Star Trek was one of the first series to confront the war and I think “ATCSL” is a perfect example of that. The colors green and orange represent autumn, the time associated with maturity, death and rebirth.