Star Trip
| Zine | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Star Trip |
| Publisher: | Stardate Press, then Orion Press |
| Editor(s): | Randall A. Landers |
| Type: | cartoons |
| Date(s): | 1983, 1985 |
| Medium: | print zine |
| Fandom: | Star Trek: TOS |
| Language: | English |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Star Trip is a Star Trek: TOS 58-page collection of cartoons by Don Harden that appeared in Stardate #3-#19.
From an ad in Universal Translator #17: "Destined to be a classic, even if we do say so ourselves."
It features:
- Star Trip: The Plotless Cartoon
- Star Trip: The Wrath of Dhon
The zine includes three long editorials, two of which are included here. The third is by Randy Landers.
The Editorial: By Thomas Harden
When I was asked to do a preface for STAR TRIP, I thought to myself, "Sure, no problem," But it's been so long ago that it seems the memories are hard to bring back.I can't just say that it all started in 1978 because it really goes back much farther than that. All the way back to our days at Lindley Junior High School in Mableton, Georgia, At that time, I was struggling through I.S.C.S. (Intermediate Science Curriculum Studies), which was Randy Landers' cup of tea. We had a little Star Trek club which I somehow managed to acquire membership into. We had grand little projects like designing intergalactic spacecraft complete with engine room, crew quarters, bridge, brig and warp drive. I remember a movie we made at Randy's house with super 8mm film. It had King Kong and Rodan (it was an all-star cast). King Kong was hurled off of a cliff by Rodan, He was then to be buried under falling dirt. Randy filmed away while I kicked the ledge to make dirt and rocks fall on Kong. All of a sudden this huge dirt clog fell on the plastic ape and he was truly finished. Randy jumped up and yelled, "Oh, no! My monkey!" I said, "Keep filming! It's a once in a lifetime scene!" We finished that film, but I don't think I ever saw the finished product. Maybe one day I'll see it at the Cannes Film Festival. We had different clubs all through high school, always adding new people and getting rid of others. It seems like we had severed relations several times, only to team up once again for some great new project. During our freshman year at Pebblebrook High School in Kabletor, we started our story writing club. I was given the rank of Commodore, although I preferred to be a Captain. I did my own take-off of all five Planet of the Apes movies. I ran out of ideas early and I think the last story or two could have gotten me sued for plagiarism, had they been published. David Newton, Gary Loden, Randy and I always got together during lunch to do our stories. Sure, I felt sort of silly, but we were having a good time, so I didn't mind too much. This is when some of the stories got silly. For instance, anybody we didn't like would be put in command of a doomed vessel on a one-way mission. They died without honor. A few years later, I was sitting in Genetics class when I heard some giggling from the vicinity of Randy's table. He was sitting with Dennis Dufano and David Newton. They were red-faced trying to keep from laughing. They were working on a story about some space worm named Quimby. If I remember right, "Space Girl" was also in the story. I don't know if this story was ever finished, but a day or so later we started on STAR TRIP. I feel that it was our destiny to write this story. We held back cur laughter many times, but we still made a lot of noise. The teacher, Coach Crump, looked over at us about a hundred times during the quarter. He always looked real puzzled, but he never said a word. Probably because we were the only "A" students in the class. I could picture him making us read it aloud to the whole class, but our grades never suffered. I think the lowest test grade I made was a 92. The surprising thing was that I wasn't ever an "A" student at anything. Especially without even trying. Randy decided later to start a fanzine and asked ne if I would contribute some material. The first story I did for him was a real loser. Roberta Rogow, editor of Grip, rejected it, but Randy gave me a break. It was called "The Salos Sell-out." I co-authored several stories with Randy and sometimes a third party. Then one day Randy brought out a story we did that he found in his closet. I told him I thought it was all right and that I was working on another story. It turned out to be my very favorite one. It was called "A Time to Cry," which appeared in Stardate #3.
But, then he called back with a better idea. We could make STAR TRIP into a comic strip! So, I referred him to my older brother, Don, who Randy had met before. Don was already working on cartoons for his college newspaper, so he had to work part time on STAR TRIP. This was one reason it was printed about two pages at a time.
Since I have married and started a family, I haven't had much time for writing. Some of the stories I have been sent to co-author did not meet with my wife' s approval, such as the "Spock's Brain" parody. But maybe I can get in on all the fun in the upcoming "STAR TRIP III — Return to Genesis II."
The Editorial: By Don Harden
This volume represents a project which began several years ago by my brother Ton, Randall Lander's and several of their friends in high school. Sometime in 1979, Randy asked me to do some drawings for his then-new fanzine, Stardate. At the time, I had started doing editorial cartoons for my college newspaper, The Georgia State University Signal, and was a cartoonist at Six Plans Over Georgia. Randy told me that he had a script for a Star Trek spoof called "Star Trip" and wondered if I could serialize it into a comic strip format as a regular Stardate feature. I had never really tried drawing a comic strip before, but I thought it would be fun to do.The typed script Randy gave me was followed pretty closely, although I constantly added new bits of dialog of my own, as well as numerous sight gags. I can look back on some of those early strips and can see now that I had a tremendous problem with making the drawings small enough for the page, yet still maintain a likeness of the various characters. Sometimes 1 succeeded and sometimes I did not. Some of these early drawings were incredibly tight, but they were done just the size you see them. They were not drawn large and then reduced down as is done by some of the professional cartoon magazines. But each individual installment got a little better as it went along. Also, the feedback from one issue of Stardate to the next was very helpful and even led to the use of some gags prompted by certain letters of comment. All of the STAR TRIP segments are included in this special edition and they have been polished and combined together. Some of the early strips have been redrawn and modified for consistency and to improve the flow from one segment to the next. The biggest and perhaps the most ambitious STAR TRIP up to now is included. It's STAR TRIP II— The Wrath of Dhon. You see, Dhon is me, more or less. This one was a lot fun, especially since I had a great deal more input into the storyline. Some readers have noticed that certain parts of "The Wrath of Dhon" appear to be taken directly from the movie. This is only partly true. They were actually taken from promotional film clips aired on "The Merv Griffin Show" some two weeks before the movie premiered. At any rate, not one turn was left unstoned in this spoof.
Read and enjoy and look out for us — we're ready to do another one.
