TOS in widescreen

Thanks to the occasional panning shot, sometimes you can create some wonderful panoramic images by stitching together screencaps from episodes of Star Trek, which is exactly what Nick Acosta has done with scenes from episodes of The Original Series. Acosta has collected many of these in a gallery on his website. I've picked out some of my favourites below, but there are many more on said website:

Star Trek toys and models updates

Here are a few toy and model updates. First up, a rather dramatic trailer for Fascinations new Star Trek Metal Earth model kits. There are four laser-etched steel model kits coming in the next month or two (see previous report for photos):



There's also a video preview from Entertainment Earth, for the latest Wrath of Khan bobble-heads from Bif Bang Pow - Following the release of Kirk, Spock, and Khan, earlier in the year, the rest of the Enterprise crew will be coming along from November.



Continue after the jump for updates on ships, props and more from Diamond Select Toys:

The Q Gambit #3 preview

It was a bumper week for Star Trek comics this week, along side the latest issue in the City of the Edge of Forever series, we also got the third issue in The Q Gambit, the six part DS9 crossover story in the nuTrek ongoing series. Continue below for a five page preview of this issue:

City on the Edge of Forever #4 preview

Out this week was the fourth (and penultimate) part in the comic book adaptation of Harlan Ellison's original teleplay for City on the Edge of Forever. Here are five pages (continuing after the jump) to tempt those of you that haven't picked it up yet:

Comic panels: Gold Key, Gary Seven, and more

An assortment of comics news today, starting with the first look at IDW's third hardcover omnibus of remastered Gold Key Comics: Now listed on Amazon for release in February next year, is Gold Key Archives, Volume 3. Here's the very snazzy new cover, and blurb:

Boldly going... where it all started! Presenting the first comic book adventures of the U.S.S. Enterprise and her crew! Fully remastered with new colors, Volume 3 collects issues #13-18, including stories such as "Dark Traveler," "The Enterprise Mutiny," "The Hijacked Planet," and more.

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es.

We can expect the "and more" to be Museum at the End of Time, Day of the Inquisitors, and The Cosmic Cavemen - Remastered to the same quality as the previous two books, this will be a real treat. (See previous reports for previews of book one, and book two.).

"Full thrust, for pity's sake!"

Speaking of early classic comics: While Gold Key were publishing in the US in the sixties and seventies, there was also a string of comic strips printed in magazines in the UK. These rarely seen comics are little known, and had some truly stunning artwork - It was hoped that following IDW's publishing of the US newspaper comic strips over the last couple of years, they would continue the series with a couple of books collecting the UK strips.

Alas these books have yet to surface, and according to a recent blog by Star Trek comic collector Rich Handley (who worked on the newspaper strip reprint books) it seems IDW might not be going ahead. Rich has called for a campaign to alert IDW of the demand for these, including encouraging fans to write to IDW to let them know. I echo Rich's request; these amazing and rare comics deserve to be seen by a wider audience. Come on IDW, make it happen! I've posted a few sample panels from the UK comics on my tumblr, check them out, beautiful stuff.

Continue after the jump for more comics news, including a possible Gary Seven photo-comic, the latest previews from City on the Edge of Forever, and some details on the Planet of the Apes crossover.

First look at Official Starships Collection USS Vengeance and other new ships

Lots of updates from the The Official Starships Collection below. Starting with a first look at the third over-sized special issue, the USS Vengeance:

Entertainment Earth posted the image, and also a description which hints at things we can look forward to in the magazine:

This special Star Trek Starships Collection Vehicle is one of the biggest and baddest Starfleet vessels ever designed - the U.S.S. Vengeance, the villainous warship that played a starring role in 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness. This oversized model has been produced at a larger size to reflect the huge size of the Vengeance and is nearly 8 1/2-inches long. Every detail of this heavily armed ship has been carefully reproduced with careful reference to the original CG model created by ILM. The accompanying magazine explores the design process and includes never-seen-before concept artwork and all new interviews with the Vengeance's creators.

Entertainment Earth have this listed for March release, but it will be out in the UK first. The Vengeance was listed alongside regular issues coming out in December in the UK, so I would guess this special issue should be out by the year's end too.

Those regular issues also give us first and/or new looks at forthcoming models, issues thirty-five to thirty-seven, the 22nd century Klingon Bird of Prey, the Oberth class USS Grissom, and the Andorian cruiser Kumari. I think the image processing might have been a bit off in these images, so I would imagine the final colours wont be quite so vivid!

Continue after the jump for more previews from the series:

Q Are Cordially Uninvited...

Coming next month is the latest Star Trek ebook, Rudy Josephs' TNG story, Q Are Cordially Uninvited.... The novella is set to reveal the events of the wedding of Jean-Luc Picard and Beverly Crusher, which previously occurring "off-screen", prior to the novel Greater Than the Sum. Simon and Schuster and StarTrek.com have now released the cover and blurb, revealing some new details about the story:

The wedding of Captain Jean-Luc Picard to Doctor Beverly Crusher was a small, private affair overseen by the mayor of La Barre, France, and witnessed by the groom’s sister-in-law and the mayor’s wife. At least, that’s what the happy couple always told their friends. On the anniversary of that blessed day, however, Worf and Geordi La Forge manage to coax the real story out of the pair, to discover a tale of mythical treasure and a lost civilization in the Delta Quadrant. It all begins when the omnipotent being Q crashes the festivities, declaring himself best man and bringing along an unwilling guest as a surprise for the groom.

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es, Amazon.it, Amazon.co.jp, iTunes.

IDW's December Star Trek comics

IDW have released their December solicitations, which include three new Star Trek comics, plus an omnibus book. Continue below for a look at the start of one series, the end of another, and everything else coming at the end of the year:

Star Trek/Planet of the Apes: The Primate Directive #1
The first of a new five-part crossover series. Written by Scott and David Tipton, with art by Rachael Stott.

It's the crossover nobody ever expected! STAR TREK: The hope for the best of mankind's future! PLANET OF THE APES: A chilling look at the fall of humanity! How could these worlds possibly collide? What could possibly cause Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise to side with Dr. Zaius to protect Ape City? And what does Colonel George Taylor have to say about it? It's a madhouse! A madhouse!!

There will be no less than six different covers for this first issue in the series! The regular covers come from Rachael Stott and Juan Ortiz. There will be a subscription variant by George Perez, and several other retail incentive covers; one by variant cover by Tone Rodriquez, sketch version of the Perez cover, and a blank sketch cover (so you can get an appropriate artist to give you a bespoke cover when the opportunity arises). IDW have so far released four of the six, the Stott, Rodriquez, and Perez (regular and sketch) designs.

Continue after the jump for the rest of the covers and other December releases:

Four Trek T-shirts available today

ShirtPunch, one of those websites that offers T-shirt designs for twenty-four hours at a time, has four different Star Trek shirts on offer today: Retro designs featuring a Klingon bird of Prey and the USS Enterprise, a Captain Kirk portrait, and a Starfleet delta Argyle pattern. Each design is available in either short or long sleeved T-shirts, or as a hoodie.

Continue after the jump for a closer look at each design. As I write this, there are seven hours or so left to get them if you like any of them.

Original USS Enterprise departs for refit

The original miniature of the USS Enterprise seen in Star Trek: The Original Series has been on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum since the 70s, but a few days ago was taken out of it's home in the museum gift shop (where it has resided since 2000). Fear not though, it will be returning, in time for the fiftieth anniversary of Star Trek, and fortieth anniversary of the museum, as part of a revamped displayed in the museum's centerpiece Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall.

While waiting for the new display area to be readied, the model will undergo conservation work. The Smithsonian laid out their approach to that in their blog about the move:

The Museum’s general approach emphasizes conservation over preservation and preservation over restoration. Restoration is bringing an object back to its appearance and condition at a determined point in time in the past. With a restoration approach, there is less concern for preserving original materials and more focus on returning to the original specification, often through the addition of non-original materials. Preservation is an overall philosophy that favors keeping original material over creating an ideal physical appearance, while keeping the artifact from deteriorating any more. Conservation follows the preservation philosophy and is minimally invasive, utilizing scientific investigation and techniques to maintain original materials, preserving the object’s physical history of ownership and use.

It will be interesting how much they stick to the conservation over restoration, as previous work by the museum did in fact give the ship quite an overhaul. As you can see in some of the images below, the model currently features rather strong grid-lines that weren't present on it before the last time it had conservation work.

The new look Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall.

When the Enterprise does return, it will sit alongside other historical artefacts depicting the history of flight and space exploration (like an up-scaled version of Admiral Marcus' office), including the Spirit of St. Louis, Bell X-1, and an Apollo Lunar Module. It has yet to be revealed how the Enterprise will be displayed in the new hall - The case it was just moved out of was created for it after X-Rays at the last move revealed the model was being stressed from its previous hanging displays.

Continue after the jump for a look at the Enterprise's history at the museum.

Alien Domain, heading to browsers soon

GameSamba have announced details of their new Star Trek browser game, including the title, Alien Domain. The game will focus on Federation and Klingon exploration of Fluidic Space, the home of Species 8472, and is set for launch later this year. GameSamba gave an overview of the game in their press release:

Set in the mysterious extradimensional realm of Fluidic Space, players will make strategic decisions to maintain control over limited resources, balance defensive spending with research, establish colonies, and prioritize power distribution for optimal efficiency. Players will also have the option to participate in PvP encounters such as one-on-one skirmishes, raids against player-controlled outposts, and large-scale, guild vs. guild Alliance Battles.

Taking place after the most chronologically recent Star Trek canon and featuring a new Star Trek story, players will control a variety of starships and technologies native to their chosen faction. Starships include Constitution-class and Defiant-class starships for the Federation, and D7 Battle Cruisers and Bird-of-Prey for the Klingon Empire. Players will even be able to craft and pilot unprecedented super starships created through emerging technologies. Creating a diverse starship fleet is essential for exploring the deep reaches of Fluidic Space and quelling its threats, as well as for defending against rival colonies and players.

Several in-game screen-shots have been released. Continue after the jump for a look at space and ground based game play:

New look TOS DVDs

If you're tired of all this new-fangled high definition bluray stuff, then CBS should brighten your day, as this month hey are reissuing Star Trek: The Original Series on DVD, in snazzy new packaging. TV Shows on DVD revealed the artwork for all three seasons of the remastered series:

Captain Kirk's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Due out in November from Titan Magazines is their latest extra big annual, the Star Trek Magazine Special 2015. The bumper issue will include lots of interviews, and sport a Sergeant Pepper inspired cover (as posted by Previews):

Things From Another World have posted a blurb, noting some of the features that will be included:

Exploring strange new worlds, new life and new civilizations for more than 50 issues, the official Star Trek magazine is the only place to find the best interviews, original features, and exclusive behind-the-scenes action! In this special edition, we talk to movie actors Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, and Bruce Greenwood, as well as Trek TV legends Gates McFadden, Denise Crosby, and Rene Auberjonois! We go behind-the-scenes of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Into Darkness, dissect what makes Kirk the perfect captain, and discover what happens When Cultures Collide!

New Attack Wing ships on the way in 2015

Wizkids have announced four new waves of model ships coming next year in their Star Trek miniatures game, Attack Wing. Continuing their monthly releases, March next year will see three new ships in wave thirteen, with another three due each month following up until at least June, with wave sixteen the furthest ahead so far solicited. As is typical of the series, the new ships are pulled form across the franchise, including designs that have rarely, and indeed sometimes never, been released as models before.

March's wave thirteen will include the refit Constitution class mirror universe ship ISS Enterprise, the Cardassian Galor class Reklar, and a Gorn ship.

This will be the first retail model of the Gorn design which appeared in the remastered version of Arena. Although the same model has been available already this year in limited quantities as an organised play event prize.

Wave fourteen in April will include the Krenim Temporal Weapon, another mirror universe ship, the NX class ISS Avenger, and the Oberth class USS Pegasus.

This is only the second ever rendition of the Krenim ship, following the recently released Eaglemoss version.

In May wave fifteen includes the USS Prometheus, the Bajoran ship Ratosha, and the Klingon Bird of Prey IKS Ning'tao.

The rare ship of this bunch is the Ratosha, which has been seen as a model just once before, also as a gaming miniature (indeed probably the very same mold) in the Tactics game.

Wave sixteen in June will see the "USS Dauntless", the Ferengi D'Kora class Marauder Kreechta, the Olympic class USS Pasteur.

And again here Eaglemoss have just narrowly beaten Wizkids, in getting the first ever model of the USS Dauntless out already.

That's it for the 2015 releases, but wave seven is just appearing right now. Continue after a jump for a look at the newest ships to join the collection:

Danilo's ships calendar

A couple of years ago Danilo started publishing Star Trek calendars for the UK market (which has had the unfortunate effect of making the US calendars from Universe Publishing trickier to get hold of on this side of the Atlantic). Danilo's offering has been a bit different every year, but they do have a recurring ships calendar.

How they present that calendar has changed year to year: For the 2013 calendar they used various images of nuTrek ships (a mixture of stills and concept art). In 2014 they gathered an assortment of vary familiar shots from the across the franchise, the regular promo shots of ships we've seen many times before. The 2015 calendar, which has just been released, changes direction once more, and this time it's very familiar. The calendar, now branded Ships of the Line, is an almost exact replica of the 2014 US Ships of the Line calendar, with one less image, as this version doesn't have a centerfold image.

There are a few alterations, while the images are the same, the formatting is different, with the titles placed differently, and in different fonts, and most notably the calendar being presented as a bar across the bottom of the entire page - Which as far as calendar functionality goes might actually be an improvement (personally I see Ships of the Line more like a Trek-art magazine though).

Previously Danilo have offered a second Star Trek calendar option - A TOS calendar for 2013, and Into Darkness for 2014. There are listings for a 2015 TNG calendar from them, although no images have surfaced, and retailer listings seem a bit empty - I have a feeling this might have been cancelled, or at the very least delayed for some reason.

Your Star Trek calendar options needn't be limited though, as there are four other 2015 calendars from US publisher Universe.

Aliens trading card series

The latest range of Star Trek trading cards from Rittenhosue Archives focuses on Aliens. Coming in November, the new series will feature alien characters, exotic and familiar, from across the prime timeline. There will be one hundred basic cards, and a plethora of bonus cards, including:

• Randomly inserted sketch cards.
• 60 autographed cards, in 1 in 8 packs.
• 18 sticker cards, in 1 in 16 packs.
• Gold versions of the cards, in 1 in 24 packs.
• 9 "First Appearances" cards, in 1 in 24 packs.
• 9 "Quotable Klingon" cards, in 1 in 24 packs.
• 10 alien ships cards, in 1 in 24 packs.
• 6 alien badge/pin cards, in 1 in 288 packs.

You'll find five cards in each pack, twenty-four packs per box, and twelve boxes in a case. And there are further bonus cards if you're buying by the case:

• 2 case toppers, either a Borg or Klingon poster design by Juan Ortiz, 1 per case.
• Hand drawn sketch cards by Warren Martineck Card, as a 6-case incentive.
• Painted sketch cars by Mick and/or Matt Glebe, as a 9-case incentive.
• An archive box, with an exclusive "relic" card, as an 18-case incentive.

Regular and case-incentive sketch cards.

The Big Bang Theory goes retro

For last year or so, there has been a growing range of co-branded Star Trek and the The Big Bang Theory merchandise, including clothing, apparel, and toys. The latest entry into this collection comes from Bif Bang Pow, in the form of Mego-style retro action figures of all the main Big Bang Theory characters, in TOS Starfleet uniforms - There have been several other toy versions of the Big Bang guys presented Star Trek style, but this is the first time the female characters have been included.

This new series casts Leonard as Captain Kirk, and Sheldon as Spock (complete with very pointy ears). The science department is filled out by Amy and Bernadette, while operations is manned by Penny, Raj, and Howard. I raise a quizzical Spock-like eyebrow at the ranks here, as all the female characters are at least a rank below the males!

Entertainment Earth have all seven available for pre-order, and anticipate an October release. They are limited to the rather curious figure of six-hundred-and-two of each character. Continue after the jump below to see the full range.

Foul Deeds Will Rise cover

Due out in December is a new TOS movie-era novel from Greg Cox, Foul Deeds Will Rise, which is also a sequel to the episode The Conscience of the King. StarTrek.com have now revealed the cover for the book, which was created by Joe Corroney; an artist more often associated with Star Trek comics, having produced covers and interior illustrations for numerous IDW titles.

Here's a reminder of the blurb:

2288. The U.S.S. Enterprise-A is on a vital peacekeeping mission in a remote solar system beyond the boundaries of the Federation, where two warring planets—Pavak and Oyolo—are attempting to end years of bitter conflict. Crucial peace talks are being conducted aboard the Enterprise, even as Starfleet weapons inspectors oversee the disarmament process. Losses and atrocities on both sides have left plenty of hard feelings behind, so Captain James T. Kirk has his work cut out for him, even as he unexpectedly runs into a disturbing figure from his past: Lenore Karidian.

Twenty years ago, the deadly daughter of Kodos the Executioner tried to kill Kirk, but she has since been declared sane and rehabilitated. Kirk wants to give her the benefit of the doubt and a second chance at life, but when a mysterious assassination threatens the already fragile peace process, all clues point toward Lenore—and the future of two worlds hangs in the balance.

TNG season 7 bluray previews

Coming in December is the final set of releases in the TNG bluray project, the Season Seven box set, and stand-alone release of All Good Things... StarTrek.com have revealed the cover art, and released trailers of both.

StarTrek.com gave this description of the Season Seven set:

The Seventh Season Blu-ray will boast all 26 final-season episodes and a treasure chest of previously unseen interviews with cast and crew, including the three-part documentary “The Sky’s The Limit: The Eclipse Of Star Trek: The Next Generation” and the featurette “In Conversation: Lensing Star Trek: The Next Generation,” as well as deleted scenes and an unreleased gag reel.

Continue after the jump for a look at the All Good Things stand-alone release:

Star Trek: The Compendium previews

Due out in less than a week is Star Trek: The Compendium, the new bluray release of both nuTrek films, including the IMAX version of Into Darkness and all the extra features which were previously scattered to the retailer exclusive winds. In fact the Into Darkness portion of the set even has a couple of new featurettes, on props and costumes, and StarTrek.com have posted a preview clip from the costume piece, looking at the Starfleet issue wetsuits seen early in Into Darkness:



UPDATE: And TrekMovie have released another clip, looking at the new unifom variations seen in Into Darkness:



A couple of clips have been released from the gag reel. Continue after the jump for a look at those:

Metal models from Fascinations

Fascinations, makers of novelty gifts, including metal models of various buildings and vehicles (including Star Wars ships and droids), is soon to add Star Trek to their range, with a collection of four metal starship model kits. Intricate models of the USS Enterprise, USS Enterprise-D, Klingon Bird of prey, and Vor'cha class will be available. They are delivered as flat sheets of laser etched steel, which need to be folded together, and held together using lots of tabs, to make the 3D form - The finished models range from three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half inches long/wide. StarTrek.com have previewed all four models:

These will be out later this year; StarTrek.com state later this month, while Fascinations have told me October, and their Facebook page says November! The Facebook page also posted another images which so shows alternate views of the models, including the Enterprise with correct nacelle orientation: