June's retro art collection

Another month, another batch of Juan Ortiz's TOS retro prints cometh. Here are the four new designs in the eleventh release in the series, along with comments from the artist, via SarTrek.com:

The Menagerie, Part Two

A nice companion piece to last month's Part One poster, this time we get the healthy Captain Pike. Ortiz's commentary:

I almost didn't do a part two. Instead, I almost created one poster for both episodes. But since they are two separate episodes, I decided that it was necessary. I'm glad that I did, too, because it gave me a chance to work on the old phaser or laser pistol.

The Empath

This looks a lot like a cover for a 70s novel to me, I think mainly thanks to the use of the line. Indeed Ortiz cites influences from a book cover designer:

Gem was like a character out of an old silent movie, so for dramatic effect, I zoomed in for a close-up. The simple style that I used was inspired by 50's designer Joaquin Pertierra. Like Saul Bass, Joaquin was a genius at saying a lot with so little. The Enterprise for a tear was an afterthought, an idea that I think has since been done by another artist.

Space Seed

So at last the episode which gives us the cover for the book of this series is revealed. Ortiz on this design:

The hand represents Khan. The skull represents evil. The poster is sliced in half so that the hand would read as growing out of the bottom half, like an evil vine of some type reaching out.

The poster was inspired by the work of Saul Bass. Particularly his poster for The Man with The Golden Arm.

All Our yesterdays

Ortiz on his choice of Spock attacking McCoy on this one:

I think there's some good acting in that scene, and one of the most memorable scenes from the series. It's also a good grab for anyone that has never seen the episode.

And his depiction of Zarabeth:

The creature is actually Zarabeth, as we see her for the first time, wearing her fur coat. I remember seeing Zarabeth in her coat and not knowing who or what she was at first. I felt that would be a good image to entice the viewer with.

Of course it's not just posters that this artwork comes to us on, you can also get T-shirts and glasses with the designs on. Continue after the break to see Might Fine's T-shirt versions (which as ever give us slightly expanded version of the posters), and the Bif Bang Pow glasses: